Four Hundred and Seventy-Seven Noble Occupants

When Guderian stood on a high hill and watched his troops advancing on the vast Ukrainian plains, he realized why the head of state disagreed with the strategic plan to attack the Soviet Union proposed by the National Defense Forces Staff.

Several tanks once made Guderian feel magnificent. Coupled with cars and armored vehicles, as well as command vehicles and other logistics vehicles, his 1st Armored Division was simply a giant when it was in France.

But now, between the sky and the earth, these vehicles meander on the road, compared with the magnificence of nature, they are as small as earthworms. An army of tens of thousands of people scattered on this plain, and they were nowhere to be found in an instant. Originally, he thought that his troops could control many areas, but now it seems that they only control some of the most basic defensive areas. The troops were still scattered.

At the very beginning, Guderian mobilized his troops in units of battalions. Later, because of the long front line and the huge terrain, he was forced to fight with companies as the basic unit. Later, he even had only one platoon or one squad. On the offensive, this is a very distressing thing for an army commander.

The 9th Mechanized Rifle Corps has already caught up with Guderian. The 3rd SS Armored Division and the 9th Motorized Rifle Division also handed over the defense line to the German infantry behind them, catching up with the attacking 1st Armored Division. This increased the number of troops that Guderian could use, but after these troops were sent to various attack points, they still found that they were still too small for this land.

The battle was very strange. The German offensive force was actually not large. Only about 100,000 people were put into the first counterattack. These troops were subsequently strengthened to 450,000, but compared to the Soviet Union they had to deal with Troops, this offensive force is not huge in any case.

In yet another massive encirclement of 300,000 German troops, the Soviets had about 600,000 troops. However, due to the lack of heavy weapons and air support, these troops had no way to break through the originally loose defense line formed by the German army.

Everywhere on the battlefield, 1,000 Soviet Red Army soldiers raised their hands and surrendered to 100 German soldiers. You can also see scenes of more than 20 German soldiers attacking thousands of Soviet Red Army with guns.

A field photographer captured the process of the German army attacking the village at that time: two German machine gunners set up their own machine gun position behind a fence at the entrance of the village, and then the machine gun position began to pour ammunition, and more than a dozen German troops outflanked and rushed into the village. Inside the village, after about ten minutes, they drove out about 300 panicked Soviet Red Army soldiers from the village. These people looked hungry for a long time, and raised their hands in fear to ask the German army to give them something to eat.

As the chief of staff of the German Army on the Eastern Front, Manstein drew up a combat plan called "Shining" under the instruction of Acador. This combat plan allowed the German army to advance at the fastest speed after Operation Requiem. The Soviet Red Army did not react before occupying Ukraine and Belarus,

At the same time, wipe out all the field troops on the Eastern Front of the Soviet Army.

Now this "shine" is enough to shine. The German army encircled most of the Soviet Union's mobile forces on the eighth day after the battle began. Now excluding the Soviet Northern Army led by Timoshenko, it is still complete. has fallen into a catastrophe of total collapse.

A German reconnaissance unit appeared on the edge of a small town in the morning of this day. Two German soldiers on motorcycles stopped in a wheat field not far away. Bigger, it crossed the wheat field and stopped on the side of the town's street. The two German grenadiers sitting in the car jumped out of the armored car, leaned against the wall and walked forward to the first cross after they entered the town. mouth.

Several Ukrainian women with scarves wrapped around their heads saw the German troops breaking into their town, and said something to the German soldiers in a hurried tone. The two German grenadiers could not understand what these people said, so they could only lean against Watching these chattering foreign women vigilantly by the wall.

Soon the roar of the motorcycle engine attracted the attention of these locals. A German motorcycle with a "sidecar" drove into the town. A German army on a motorcycle confronted the first two German soldiers. "There don't seem to be any Soviet soldiers around here," the grenadier yelled.

"What are they talking about?" A German soldier asked his companion nervously holding his gun.

"My Russian is not very good." The German soldier with glasses on the motorcycle spread his hands helplessly: "I just heard them say Russian, leave, and eat these words."

"They want to invite us to dinner?" A German soldier grinned openly, and said the most unlikely guess: "I think if they are inviting us to dinner, I will give all the cigarettes to the platoon leader."

"I'm afraid you won't be able to keep your cigarettes." A thin man in overalls pushed aside several Ukrainian women, came to these German soldiers, and stretched out his hand to shake hands with the German soldiers: "Hello, my name is Polly." Tikowski is the middle school teacher here, and I can speak German."

"Hello, what are these girls talking about?" the leading German veteran asked, pointing at the Ukrainian women with a rifle on his back.

"They said thank you for coming here and saving them from the devil. They were willing to cook you dinner, and they said there were no Soviet soldiers here anymore, and they left this morning." What was the name? Ski's middle school teacher replied.

"..." Thinking of what he said about giving away cigarettes just now because of his cheap mouth, the young German soldier was very speechless.

"That...what is Sky..." The German veteran felt very embarrassed because he didn't remember the other party's name, and continued to ask in embarrassment: "Are you sure there are no Soviet soldiers here?"

"Yes, sir, Russians are not welcome here, so you can rest assured." Whatsky nodded: "The direction they left was due east, and they walked in a hurry."

"Both of you, go to the east to guard. If you find something, fire a warning shot immediately." The veteran nodded and began to arrange the task: "The armored vehicle is waiting in the south of the town. The rest of the people continue to move forward, expand the range to about 5 kilometers, and start Take action."

The two soldiers who did not get off the motorcycle nodded, started the motorcycle and left the intersection, and the two soldiers began to move in the predetermined direction against the wall. On the street they saw 122mm anti-aircraft guns blown up by the Soviets themselves, and several abandoned military vehicles.

Soon the vanguard of the German army came to this small town abandoned by the Soviets. Two Leopard tanks passed through the city, followed by about 500 heavily armed grenadiers. In the town, huge swastika flags one after another were also laid on the roof by engineers and soldiers.

Subsequently, the soldiers began to erect radio antennas on the roof of the mayor's office in the center of the town. After the grenadiers checked the houses where the citizens lived, they stopped disturbing the residents. Immediately after some convertible cars were driven into the town, as soon as the German police officers in straight military uniforms appeared, the local Ukrainian girls immediately became more fond of them.

Time passed little by little, and more and more German officers arrived, and their ranks were getting higher and higher. It wasn't until Admiral Liszt got out of the car that the local people knew that this place had been used as a temporary front-line headquarters by the German Army Group E. .

Politikovsky and two good-looking Ukrainian girls were selected as representatives of the local people and were cordially met by General Liszt. Several people chatted enthusiastically about the local customs, and Politikowski also pointed to a beautiful Ukrainian girl and introduced the local clothing characteristics and customs.

When Liszt assured them that the German army would only collect one-tenth of this year's crops as taxes, the Ukrainian girl's screams could be heard far away with her mouth covered. Then the town boiled, because the Germans promised to return the Ukrainian prisoners to the locals. As long as these prisoners worked in the Polish "construction brigade" for a year, they could return to their hometown safely. People sang and danced to celebrate the arrival of the German army. From this moment on, the identity of the "German Occupation Army" was sublimated to the more noble "German Liberator".

A dozen men who hid in the wheat field were persuaded by Politikowski to return to the town, but the Germans did not mean to embarrass them. Even a young man in a Soviet military uniform was pardoned by Liszt. So the Germans once again jumped from "liberators" to "people sent by God to liberate Ukraine."

There are voices thanking the Germans for driving away the "Soviet demons". The heroic Ukrainians even offered to provide 100 clean houses for the German army, saying nothing to let the officers of the Army Group sleep in tents around the town inside.

This is the first Ukrainian town to welcome the German army. Of course, it has received attention from all sides. Marshal Brauchic was once again shocked by the far-sightedness of the head of state, Akado, because Akado had drawn up the plan before. , predicted that the German offensive would be welcomed by the local people of Ukraine.

Subsequently, in the name of the Army Staff Headquarters, the German army issued temporary legal regulations for the occupying forces, prohibiting the German army from disrupting the lives of local people. Troops at all levels must strictly enforce this regulation and maintain gentlemanly restraint towards friendly local Ukrainian residents. In fact, the guerrillas that the German army was worried about, resistance and hatred did not appear. On the contrary, more Ukrainians did not have any special feelings for the arrival of the Germans. They watched the German military convoy driving past them numbly. Cheers and no hatred.