Hitler was also interested in the Portuguese Azores and Cape Verde Islands. The Azores did not just offer an Atlantic naval base for the Kriegsmarine. The OKW war diary later noted: ‘The Führer sees the value of the Azores in two ways. He wants to have them in case of America’s intervention and for after the war.’ Hitler was already dreaming of a new generation of ‘bombers with a range of 6,000 kilometres’ to attack the eastern seaboard of the United States.
