The fog over Berlin clung to the buildings.
Inside the Reich Chancellery maps were unrolled across a long table, their corners pinned by paperweights.
Around it stood men.
Hitler stared at the Rhineland on the map, unmoving.
For over a decade, the Rhineland had been a scar on German pride.
Under Article 42 of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany had been banned from militarizing any territory west of the Rhine River.
Designed to create a permanent buffer for France, the clause had reduced the Rhineland to a no-man's-land, a zone of humiliation.
The Locarno Pact of 1925 reinforced this demilitarization, with Germany's signature offered in return for international recognition and League of Nations membership.
"Every day it remains unoccupied," he said quietly, "is another day Germany is shamed before the world."
The silence was hard.
Then Göring, shifting slightly in his chair, smirked. "And every day we wait, we allow the French to believe we still bow to Versailles."
