Chapter 2235 "All Will Be Shot"

Chapter 2240 "All shall be shot"

Malachenko finally knew everything and figured out why these Germans played word games on the so-called agreement and covered up some details that should have been clearly stated on it.

It turned out that the composition of the remnants of the 41st Armored Corps was not simple. This was not an ordinary German army like the millions of German prisoners of war held in Soviet prisoner-of-war camps.

Of course, this does not mean that these Germans in the remnants of the 41st Armored Corps were all Aryan supermen with three heads and six arms and inhuman appearances. The special point of this German remnant was not here, but in their affiliated units and the tracing back of time.

It was only after sending off Major General Greim and his entourage who said they would "discuss it after returning and report the final result later" that Malashenko, who felt something was wrong, personally interrogated several German junior officers who had just been captured and had relatively high ranks, and used some conventional means to scare them so that they would tell the truth that he found out.

It turned out that a small branch of a "quite famous" Wehrmacht unit was now trapped in the remnants of the 41st Armored Corps, with its organization still intact and its remnants still existing.

The name of this well-known Wehrmacht unit, let alone Malashenko, even the staff officer who was responsible for coordinating the interrogation and taking notes was shocked, and then immediately followed by an expression of gritting his teeth and wishing to eat the fascists alive.

This German unit was "famous" for only one thing: arresting and executing Zoya, a Soviet female guerrilla in 1941. The brutality of the torture and forced confession before Zoya's execution was so outrageous that after the news reached Moscow, even Comrade Stalin, the father who sat in the core power office of the Kremlin, was furious and issued an order to "shoot all German troops who do not surrender."

What really surprised Malashenko was not the special nature of this group of German soldiers, but that he could actually run into this group of people here and fall into his hands on the battlefield in East Prussia.

According to the confession of the German major who was personally interrogated by Malashenko after being captured, the 332nd Regiment of the 197th Infantry Division of the German Wehrmacht, which arrested and tortured Zoya and executed her, later underwent several evolutions due to the continuous development and changes of the war, and split into multiple troops.

Let's take the recent war situation as an example.

At the end of Operation Bagration in the autumn of 1944, the superior unit of the 332nd Regiment that executed Zoya, the 197th Infantry Division of the German Army, followed the Central Army Group to face the powerful frontal offensive of the Red Army and fought desperately. In the end, it was defeated by the Red Army's steel torrent and was washed away in pieces and suffered heavy losses.

In a battle where the situation was unknown and it was estimated that the German major really didn't know, the 197th Infantry Division encountered a siege and fierce attack by the superior Red Army forces and was almost annihilated. Even the division commander was killed by the Red Army's heavy artillery while leading his troops to retreat.

After that, the 197th Infantry Division, which was crippled and lost its combat effectiveness, absorbed some remnants of other troops and withdrew to the rear for reorganization.

After evaluating the situation, the German superiors believed that there was no need to replenish the 197th Infantry Division. Replenishing this infantry division that was almost wiped out and only had an empty frame and a bunch of remnants was basically the same as the cost of raising a new infantry division.

The 197th Infantry Division was not a meritorious German unit with outstanding military achievements, and its ordinary numerical number did not need to be retained for reconstruction.

In view of this, the Central Army Group Command directly removed the number of the 197th Infantry Division after the war, and disbanded and reorganized its remaining troops as supplementary forces to fill the various German field forces that were in urgent need of replenishment after the super-disastrous defeat of Operation Bagration.

Coincidentally, the 41st Armored Corps, which retreated and entrenched in Poland at the time, received part of the troops from the disbanded and reorganized 197th Infantry Division.

What's even more coincidental is that the batch of supplementary troops received by the 41st Armored Corps was the 332nd Regiment, which had the most complete structure and relatively small loss of troops among the remaining troops of the 197th Infantry Division. Or it is precisely because the 41st Armored Corps is the main field cluster of the Wehrmacht, the priority of troop replenishment is very high, and it needs to be given the highest level of priority guarantee as much as possible, so it can get such a relatively complete and experienced infantry regiment as a supplement.

After receiving the 332nd Regiment, the 41st Armored Corps still experienced unsuccessful battles.

The Polish Campaign was penetrated by the central front, the Great German Division was completely wiped out, and the city of Warsaw was lost at the speed of light, which led to the German army's northern and southern fronts being divided and separated, unable to take care of each other and ultimately failed. This is a well-known thing now.

At that time, the 41st Armored Corps was in northern Poland. After receiving the news that the battlefield was out of control, it was also the first to move northward to avoid being surrounded by the Soviet mobile group and attacked from both sides. Its final destination of retreat was East Prussia in northern Poland.

After retreating to East Prussia, the 41st Armored Corps took a short rest and was soon sent to the forefront of the East Prussian theater bordering Poland as a first-class main field group to deploy troops and set up defenses, ready to resist the foreseeable Soviet strategic offensive.

The story is basically sorted out here, and then the story of Malashenko commanding the leader's division to attack and violently bombard.

According to the subsequent confession of the captured German major who was very honest and obviously timid after being intimidated, the 332nd Infantry Regiment experienced a second split after being incorporated into the 41st Armored Corps. One of the battalions was incorporated into the previous armored division that had been killed by Malashenko, as an elite armored grenadier unit assigned to the armored troops to cooperate in combat.

The remaining two battalions absorbed a new recruit supplementary battalion. After the veterans led the new recruits to dilute it, an elite infantry regiment with rich combat experience was formed on the surface, and it was assigned to another, which is the only remaining armored division under the current 41st Armored Corps organization table as the main force.

In other words, Malashenko had previously killed one-third of the Nazi executioner troops who had tortured Zoya and were ordered to be killed by his father without knowing it.

The remaining two-thirds neither escaped nor died. Excluding the German corpses lying all over the battlefield, the rest were still hiding in the remnants of the 41st Armored Corps, struggling to survive.