Red Moscow

The German army entering the No. 4 factory building is the officers and soldiers of the 1st Battalion of the 578th Regiment. The regiment was stationed on the right flank of the 577th regiment under the order of Steinmetz, occupying the defensive positions in and around the No. 4 factory building.

Captain Rettenmeier, the battalion commander, was sitting in the front armored vehicle. As soon as he entered the factory building, he asked loudly to the soldiers in the ruins not far away: "Soldiers, where is your commander?"

The German army stationed in the factory building was part of the 100th Jaeger Division. They had just repelled the sneak attack of the second company of the reduced regiment, and they were in a state of high nervousness. Suddenly, I saw a troop enter the factory building. Although the other party was wearing the same uniform and holding the same weapon as myself, they still occupied a favorable defensive position and aimed their guns at the convoy that had just arrived, preparing to find something was wrong. , shoot immediately.

After Reitenmeier yelled, seeing that the other party did not agree, he jumped out of the armored vehicle compartment and prepared to walk a few steps forward to see if he could find the commander of the friendly army. Unexpectedly, as soon as he left the armored vehicle, a German sergeant jumped out of the nearby ruins. He was not affected by Reitenmeier's higher rank than himself, but pointed his gun at the opponent and shouted sharply: "Captain!" , stop! What part are you in?"

Facing the gun pointed at him, Reitenmeier stopped in his tracks, and replied loudly: "I am Reitenmeier, commander of the Second Battalion of the 578th Regiment of the 305th Infantry Division, and I was ordered to take over your defense. Your Where is the commander, let him come out and hand over the defense to me."

"I'm sorry, Captain!" Although Leitenmeier had already identified himself, the sergeant who pointed his gun at him did not lower his gun, but shouted to the side: "Private Zessina, you Go and invite Mr. Lieutenant over, and say that someone from the 305th Infantry Division will take over our defense." The soldier whose name was called by the sergeant, agreed, and ran away quickly.

Looking at the back of the soldier going away, in order to ease the atmosphere, Leitenmeier deliberately talked to the sergeant: "Sergeant, how long have you been here?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Captain," the sergeant replied coldly, "I won't tell you anything until my commanding officer confirms your identity."

Fortunately, the waiting time was not long. After only two or three minutes, a stern voice came from not far away: "Sergeant, what happened here? Also, where did this damn convoy come from?" here?"

Leitenmire looked in the direction where the voice came from, and saw five or six figures walking towards his position. He guessed that it might be the commander of the garrison in the factory building, so he took a few steps forward facing the sergeant's gun, and said loudly: "I am Captain Rettenmeier, the commander of the second battalion of the 578th regiment. Is it the supreme commander here?"

When the visitor heard Rettenmeier's self-identification, he quickly trotted over, straightened his body and reported to him: "Hello, Mr. Captain. I am Lieutenant Herold, the company commander of the 100th Jaeger Division, and I am here. Supreme Commander."

"Lieutenant Herold," Reitenmeyer said while looking at the other party, "Our battalion was ordered to take over the defense of your company, please hand over the defense to me now."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Captain." Hearing that Reitenmeyer asked him to hand over the defense to him, Herold said in an official tone: "Do you have an order to take over the defense? If not, please forgive me, I can't take over the defense here. Hand it over to you."

"The order to take over the defense, I've already prepared it." Reitenmeier took out a folded order from his pocket, handed it to Herold, and said, "Please take a look, Lieutenant Herold. "

Herold took the order from Reitenmeyer, and as soon as he opened it, the subordinates next to him immediately illuminated him with a flashlight so that he could see the content of the order clearly.

"Have you read it, Lieutenant Herold?" Seeing that Herold had carefully browsed through the order, Rettenmire asked, "Now, can you hand over the defense to us?"

"Yes, Mr. Captain, we can hand over the defense to you now." After Herold finished speaking, he tilted his head and whispered a few words to a second lieutenant beside him, then looked at Leitenmeier and said, "This This is my deputy company commander, let him hand over the defense to your subordinates."

Taking advantage of the transfer of defense between the two sides, Reitenmeier asked Herold curiously: "Lieutenant, we are on the way here, and we heard gunshots and explosions coming from your direction. What's going on?"

"What else can happen." Herold said with a wry smile: "The Russians attacked us in the dark, but we discovered and repelled them. I guess they won't attack again tonight after they suffered a loss. gone."

"Lieutenant Herold, I want to ask you a question." Reitenmeyer thought of a mission assigned to him by the head of the regiment, Colonel Wenzel, before he came. and Herold’s troops have been stationed here for a long time. I’m afraid he knows something, so he asked humbly: “Do you know the number of the Russian troops that reinforced the factory during the day? If you know, please tell the truth. I."

When he asked this question, he didn't expect much. As soon as he asked, Herold shook his head and replied: "Mr. Captain, to be honest, I also saw this Russian reinforcement during the day." , but I don't know what their serial numbers are."

Seeing that no useful information could be obtained from Herold, Retenmire was somewhat disappointed. He thought to himself that if he wanted to find out the number of the Russian unit, he had to send someone to scout it himself.

Herold saw Rettenmire's thoughts, and reminded him: "Mr. Captain, if you want to send someone to investigate, I advise you to give up this idea as soon as possible."

"Why?" Reitenmire asked curiously.

"We have just repelled the Russians' sneak attack. From my experience, they will definitely strengthen their defenses." Herold explained to Rettenmeier: "Sending scouts at this time will not be able to penetrate the Russians' defenses at all." Defensive zone, let alone detect useful intelligence."

Herold's words made Reitenmeier a little disappointed, and he said with a wry smile: "Lieutenant Herold, if I don't send people to conduct reconnaissance, how do I know which unit the Russians who are about to fight us belong to?"

"Mr. Captain, it's actually not difficult to find out the other party's number." When Herold said this, he saw the puzzled expression on Rettenmire's face, and explained to him: "Not long ago In the battle explained earlier, we killed several sneak attacking Russians. We only need to send someone to search for their bodies, and we can figure out which army they belong to based on the documents they carried with them.”

Reitenmeier felt that what Herold said was a good idea, so he quickly called an officer and told him, "Second Lieutenant Brock, take two smart soldiers and go outside the factory to search for the Russian corpses. , to see if they have any documents on them."

After Brock accepted the order, he asked Herold where the corpse was, and then he took two soldiers out of the factory building and went outside to search for the remains of the Soviet soldiers who died in battle, to see if they could find documents that could prove the identity of the other party.

Although the corpse was only 20 to 30 meters away from the factory building, and the entire area was under the control of friendly forces, to be on the safe side, as soon as Second Lieutenant Bullock left the factory building, he immediately lay down and ran towards the corpse with hands and feet on the ground. past.

Brock quickly crawled to a corpse. This was a soldier of medium build. He might have been shot to death by a machine gun when he stood up and charged towards the factory building. Even the documents are rotten. Bullock stuck his hand with the blood that was still warm, but found nothing, so he gave up resolutely and went to search for another target.

Next to it lay the body of a thin fighter who had died after being shot in the head and abdomen. From his body, Bullock touched a certificate, he opened it and looked at it, although he couldn't understand what was written on it, but he could confirm that it was a military certificate, and he quickly stuffed it into his coat pocket.

The two German soldiers who came out with Bullock were not idle either. They carefully searched the remains of the fallen soldiers and took out their military ID cards, cigarettes and some slices of bread from their pockets. Regarding these things, the two Germans did not give up at all, and stuffed them all into their pockets. After all, there is a problem with the supplies now, and there is no harm in bringing more food with them.

After the three of them climbed into the factory building again, Bullock handed over several military ID cards they had collected to Rettenmire. Rettenmeier didn't know much Russian, so he quickly handed over the general's witness card to the Russian translator in the camp, and said, "Quickly check, which part are they from?"

After quickly flipping through several military IDs, the Russian translator raised his head and said to Rettenmeier, "Mr. Captain, according to the military IDs, these Russians are not from the same unit."

"It's normal." Hearing this, Herold couldn't help interjecting, "The Russians deployed four divisions in front of and behind the factory. After a long battle, except for the 138th Division, the rest After being disabled by us, it is entirely possible for them to merge the remaining soldiers into a fully organized unit."

Although Rettenmaier felt that what Herold said was reasonable, he did not agree with the other party's opinion, but looked at the Russian translator and asked, "Which troops do they all come from?"

The Russian translator looked down at the seized military ID card, and said casually, "What about the Istra Company, the 73rd Infantry Brigade, and the 41st Guards Division, etc."

The Russian translator may not know the numbers of these troops, but before Leitenmeier came to the barricade factory, Colonel Wenzel, the head of the regiment, specially summoned him to the headquarters and arranged for him to find out the numbers of the reinforcements to the barricade factory. He also specifically told him to confirm whether the reinforcements came from Mamayev Gang. In addition, he also told Reitenmeier the numbers of the units commanded by Sokov.

The numbers mentioned in the Russian translation today are all troops that Sokov once commanded. The military certificates found on more than a dozen corpses all proved that these people were Sokov's subordinates. In this way, who will reinforce the barricade factory, the answer is ready to come out.

After confirming that the reinforcements to the barricade factory were Sokov's troops, Reitenmeier couldn't help but gasp. After taking a few deep breaths, he called the signal soldier sitting on the armored vehicle over, and told him, "Immediately send a telegram to the regiment headquarters, saying that based on the captured military certificates, we can confirm that the troops at the barricade factory will be reinforced during the day. It's from Mamayev Kurgan."

After Wenzel received the telegram from Reitenmeier, he did not dare to neglect, and quickly reported to Steinmetz by phone. When Steinmetz learned that the troops reinforcing the barricade factory were indeed Sokov's troops, he smiled wryly and said to his chief of staff: "Chief of staff, the 577th regiment was driven out of the factory by Russian artillery fire." I should have known in a moment that the reinforcements to the barricades were from Sokov's troops."

"Then what should we do now?" When the chief of staff of the division learned that the reinforcements to the barricade factory were indeed Sokov's troops, he couldn't help but panicked for a while. He quickly asked Steinmetz: "Should we let the troops Withdraw from the barricade factory first?"

"No need." Steinmetz shook his head, and replied: "We still follow the original plan, let the 576th and 578th regiments enter the barricade overnight to protect the left and right wings of the 577th regiment."

Lieutenant Herold, who was staying in the No. 4 factory building, planned to gather troops and transfer after completing the defense transfer, but was stopped by Rettenmeier: "Lieutenant Herold, wait a minute, you can't leave now. "

Lieutenant Herold originally thought that after the defense transfer was completed, he would be able to leave in a logical manner, but at this moment when he heard that Rettenmeier prevented him from leaving, he asked dissatisfiedly: "Mr. Captain, we have already transferred the defense to you, why can't we leave?" ?”

"Lieutenant Herold, you misunderstood. It's not because I deliberately prevented you from leaving, but because you can't leave now." Seeing that Herold had misunderstood, Leitenmeier quickly explained to him: "According to the order of the division headquarters, The two regiments of our division will be stationed on the left and right flanks of the 577th regiment tonight. It is so dark today, if you retreat rashly and meet the troops stationed in the factory area, there may be misunderstandings. I think It’s not too late for you to leave the factory after dawn tomorrow.”

After listening to Rettenmire's explanation, Herold knew that he had misunderstood the other party. He grinned and said embarrassedly: "Mr. Captain, that's what happened. I understand, I will let the soldiers continue Stay in the factory building and leave after dawn, so as not to cause misunderstandings and unnecessary conflicts with your own people during the transfer."

Seeing that Herold agreed to stay, Leitenmire felt much more at ease. He smiled and asked Herold: "Lieutenant Herold, you must have been stationed in the factory for a long time, can you tell me about the situation here?"

"Mr. Captain," Herold remembered that he had received an order from his superiors to blow up all the sewers leading to the factory building, so that the Soviet army could not use the sewers to sneak into the factory building. He told Rettenmeier: "According to what we know, the Russians like to use the sewers to mobilize their troops and get into our positions. Therefore, in the first two days, we have been ordered to blow up all the sewers leading to the factory building." The Russians cannot use these sewers. However, I am worried that there are still sewers that have not been found. If you want to hold the No. 4 factory building, you must destroy the remaining sewers to prevent the Russians from entering your defense zone."