Chapter 524 Castle (1)

In the evening, Hoffman, accompanied by Keitel, arrived at the headquarters of the Central Army Group in Smolensk and was warmly welcomed by Model and others. In addition to the key personnel of the headquarters, Weichs, Jodl, Zeitzler and others had already taken their positions here.

Smolensk is very close to the front line, especially after the Rzhev salient was abandoned and the front line was leveled last autumn, it is only about 200 kilometers away from the front line, which is 5-6 days of impact distance for the tank group. The Central Army Group had set up its headquarters in Minsk for a period of time. After Model took office, he immediately moved the headquarters to Smolensk - his courage can be seen; Weichs' Eastern Army Group was originally set up in Kiev. Because this battle had to cooperate with the Central Army Group, he also brought his headquarters to Smolensk. The troops of the two headquarters poured in at once, and the scene seemed a bit crowded.

Hoffman didn't care about it. After the Vinnitsa headquarters in Ukraine was closed, the status and importance of the army group headquarters increased. Zeitzler's own headquarters was placed in Minsk, but once an important battle was launched, he would basically rush to the location of the main army group headquarters. In the past six months, he went to the Southern Army Group headquarters in Rostov the most.

It's embarrassing to say that Hoffman, as the commander-in-chief of the army, has not visited the Central Army Group for a long time. Even Model himself, after he was promoted to the commander of the Central Army Group, Hoffman had never seen him. However, this does not affect the image of the head of state in everyone's mind. Instead, everyone feels that it is more relaxed and comfortable now, which can reduce political resistance and unrealistic requirements, and the combat command system is more fluent.

Hoffman was very satisfied watching Model eager to try in the crowd. He liked the vigorous new generation and disliked the lukewarm Junker officers. He always felt that there was a gap between him and the old-school officers like Weichs and Rundstedt. However, the old marshals had their own advantages. They were more capable in coordinating relationships in all aspects, and their deep qualifications made people very respectful. So Hoffman placed Rundstedt in the position of commander of the Western Front Army, let Marshal Weichs serve as the commander of the Eastern Army Group composed of a large number of Eastern countries' troops, and then let Model take over Weichs' original position.

There was great resistance to promoting Model to the commander of the Central Army Group - it was far ahead of the historical process, and Model was very immature in terms of qualifications - he was still a colonel in 1938! He was a complete junior in the crowd, not to mention that he could not be compared with veterans like Rundstedt and Weichs. Compared with Guderian, Kleist, Hoth and other generals, his qualifications were completely inferior. He was promoted to the commander of the 9th Army very late. There were more than 15 generals ahead of Model who were qualified to take over the army, but Model finally won the first place. Unexpectedly, he became the commander of the army group more than half a year later.

If you don’t understand what rocket-like promotion means, you can see it by looking at Model’s promotion qualifications. If you insist on finding a general who can be compared with him in the army, it can only be Zeitzler, who was promoted to major general later than Model.

However, Hoffman was not swayed by this opinion. When he announced the appointment, he explained the reason: "The goal of the Central Army Group is not to attack, but to defend! Judging from the courage, determination and past achievements shown by General Model, I think he can take on the task of defense."

There is no doubt about this. The dominant idea of ​​the German Wehrmacht has always been offense. Tactics such as blitzkrieg and armored clusters are born for offense. In terms of offensive ability, a group of people rushed to be the first. Guderian, Hoth, and Kleist were all famous pioneers of blitzkrieg; but in terms of defensive ability, apart from Gotthard-Heinrich, it seems that only Model can do it. The former has always had a negative attitude towards the party, and coupled with his undisguised religious beliefs, he belongs to the controlled and used group. Even if Hoffman himself had no prejudice against Heinrich, the four giants in the party below him had different ideas. If they had to choose between the two, the party overwhelmingly supported Model, and even Zeitzler thought Model was more suitable.

Model's position as commander was thus stabilized. However, military experience is still very important. Since Model was promoted beyond the standard, other meritorious generals should not be ignored too much. Hoffman made corresponding adjustments: Due to the concentration of troops on the southern front, the Hoth Group and the Kleist Group were unified under the control of the Southern Army Group in terms of command, but the level was set at the army group level, which was equivalent to promoting Hoth and Kleist's positions in disguise; although Guderian and Rommel only had the title of army group commander, because both of them received the marshal's baton and the strategic direction they were responsible for was considered to be independent and directly responsible to the General Staff, they were also set as army group commanders; also belonging to the same level were the Western Front Army Commander Marshal Rundstedt and the Reserve Army Commander-in-Chief Marshal Blomberg.

Under the Army Commander-in-Chief, there were a total of 10 powerful commanders with the level equivalent to the army group commander, and together with Zeitzler, they basically formed the core team. Speaking of which, the army's organization and personnel system are special-the navy and air force have the first, second, and third deputy commanders, but the army has no deputy commander. It is not that a deputy commander cannot be appointed, but the General Staff has a very high status in the army's tradition. If Hoffmann himself had not served as the commander-in-chief of the army, during the Brauchitsch era, Chief of the General Staff Halder could even compete with the commander-in-chief.

Hoffman had been thinking about establishing a deputy commander of the army. He had Manstein in mind as the ideal candidate, believing that he was the only one worthy of the position of "commander among commanders". Moreover, Manstein was a smooth person. He belonged to an old Junker family, but had a good relationship with the new generation of civilians. He would not do something like Guderian did. But there was one thing that gave Hoffman a headache - Manstein had a big appetite, and he even thought that he was ambitious.

During the truce of the Spring Awakening Campaign, Manstein not only asked the Central Army Group to launch a diversionary attack in the direction of Moscow to cooperate with the southern front operations, but also proposed a Central Asian plan to Hoffman through Jodl - let Rommel's entire Middle East Army Group and most of the Kleist Group, with a total of about 500,000 troops, land on the northern shore of the Caspian Sea and sweep across the Soviet hinterland from the rear - not from east to west, but from west to east, that is, through the later Kazakhstan to the Ural Mountains, and force Stalin to surrender by outflanking and cutting off the rear.

The strategic reason is very obvious: after breaking through the defense of the northern shore of the Caspian Sea, the Russian hinterland is empty and the troops are very limited. As long as the supply can keep up, the German army will be able to sweep through easily; but the problem lies precisely in the supply. Although the Caspian Sea channel has historically been an important transportation channel for the southern line of Lend-Lease materials, Hoffman does not think that Germany currently has the ability to transport enough supplies for 500,000 people to the front line through the Caspian Sea - this is a real 500,000 mechanized troops, not 30,000 or 50,000 ordinary troops. If it is lost, Germany will be worse than Stalingrad in history. Manstein certainly knew the problem, but he placed his hopes on the magical Speer, making the latter almost spit out blood.

Hoffman thought several times that if he had the supply capacity of the Americans, he would approve this plan without hesitation, but the problem is that although Germany's logistics capacity has made great progress compared with history, it is still far behind the United States. In addition, Germany has a series of strategic directions to take into account in Africa, South America, and the Azores, and it is impossible to put all the treasures on this. If this gambling battle succeeds, everyone will be happy. If it fails, other directions will collapse.

The most painful thing is that he still can't tell whether this is Manstein's real idea or a big plan deliberately proposed by the other party to cater to him. Even Jodl and Keitel were stunned and could not fully judge the pros and cons for a while. Fortunately, there is no rush for this matter, and it can be planned slowly and considered in the long run.

In addition to the hesitation of this big plan, the adjustment of the command and personnel level of the Eastern Front has also reached a time when it is urgently needed. Rommel's Middle East Army Group completed the Middle East Campaign and joined the southern battlefield. In addition, the African Campaign was about to end. Hoffman found himself facing a rethinking of the strategic direction. He had to rely on this strategic repositioning to re-adjust the deployment of troops, command levels and structures.

But he had not yet fully thought about how to make the decision - should it be a general offensive against the Soviet Union or the British in 1943? Should Britain be forced to withdraw from the war first or the Soviet Union be forced to withdraw first? This determined the re-deployment of 1 million troops and most strategic materials. Even the simplest personnel issues were enough to give him a headache - on the one hand, he had to consider ability and qualifications, and on the other hand, he had to consider the balance of all aspects. In the end, he decided to temporarily put aside these long-term ideas and concentrate on finishing the Castle Campaign.

Compared with the Castle Campaign in history, the connotation and significance of this time were obviously different - the goal was to attack Moscow.

Regarding the choice of specific campaign goals, Model proposed two directions on behalf of the Central Army Group, one was Rzhev-Vyazma and the other was Tula. The former was to attack Moscow from the west, intending to repeat the routine of the Typhoon Campaign, and the latter was to attack Moscow from the south starting from Oryol, which was a routine of trying to detour from the south during the Typhoon Campaign. It should be said that neither of them was new.

After a long debate, everyone agreed on one point: the Castle Campaign was not the main offensive campaign, and the target was not Moscow for the time being - everyone believed that it was not yet time to launch the second Typhoon Campaign. This time the goal was very clear, to attract the Red Army's heavy troops by simulating the Typhoon Campaign and create opportunities for the third stage of the Spring Awakening Campaign.