The Rise of the Third Reich

"So... can the situation in Left Bank Ukraine be restored?" Stalin asked slowly while smoking his pipe.

"Impossible!" Zhukov's answer was very simple. He said: "The pressure faced by the Southwest Front is unprecedentedly huge. On the northern front, the German army has surrounded Chernigov and is also fighting on the Desna River, a tributary of the Dnieper River. Along the coast, a tank group consisting of the remnants of the 1st and 2nd Tank Armies and the 3rd Tank Army (all belonging to the Southwestern Front) was defeated.

The Battle of the Desna River that Zhukov mentioned took place on May 20, which was the fifth day after the Battle of Gomel (the Battle of Gomel ended completely on May 16). General Konev gathered the remnants of the 1st and 2nd Tank Armies that had just been assigned to the Southwestern Front, as well as the 3rd Tank Army, a new force, to fight on the east bank of the Desna River with the forded German troops.

The result of the battle still disappointed the Soviets!

Although Konev gathered more than 600 tanks/assault artillery into combat, he was defeated and retreated by the German armored group that had the upper hand in numbers and air superiority. More than 500 tanks/assault artillery were lost! In addition, thousands of various vehicles were either destroyed or abandoned due to malfunctions.

On the large plains on the east bank of the Desna River, there are tanks and various vehicles that have been burned to scrap or appear to be still roughly intact, most of which belong to the Soviet Red Army.

After losing the battle on the south bank of the Desna River, the main armored force of the Southwest Front was also lost. Although Konev still has some combined armies including mechanized armies and tank armies. But there are no more tank units that can stop a German army-level armored group, so we can only watch the German armored group crossing the Desna River and advancing towards the territory of Kharkov Oblast.

However, it is not the main force of the German 1st Armored Group that is advancing towards Kharkov. In fact, most of the tanks and vehicles of this group are in the area between the east bank of the Desna River and the Dnieper River (near Kiev) due to lack of fuel. "Waiting for oil".

However, General Mackensen still put together a "corps-level group" with enough fuel (including the 1st Armored Division and the 5th SS Panzergrenadier Division) to attack the city of Kharkov, more than 380 kilometers away. .

On the front of the Soviet Southwest Front, the offensive of the German Army Group South also made great progress. The Dnieper River defense line was divided into several sections by Marshal Rundstedt's front army, and all faced the dilemma of being surrounded - as long as the German 1st Armored Group Army, which is currently "waiting for fuel", received the fuel transported from Kiev, The Soviet troops guarding the Dnieper River defense line were almost finished.

Stalin hesitated and asked, "Can the Southwest Front be allowed to withdraw?"

In fact, Stalin did not necessarily disagree with the retreat of the troops. He just withheld this power step by step, and finally reached the Supreme Command - which resulted in the troops being unable to respond quickly when facing the risk of being surrounded.

"It's too late to retreat now," Zhukov told Stalin in a low tone. "We can't withdraw... The Southwest Front is stuck by the enemy. If we want to retreat, it will cause the entire line to collapse. And we have no air superiority. If we retreat too quickly, There will be a massive loss of technical equipment and baggage.

In this way, even if some troops can be withdrawn, they will lose their combat effectiveness. It is better to let them resist on the spot to attract German troops. "

At present, the Supreme Command of the Soviet Red Army does not have much reserve equipment that can immediately arm the empty-handed defeated Red Army troops, and unarmed troops are of little use on the battlefield. So it is better to let them "die on the spot", at least they can draw some German devils to back them up.

"However, necessary adjustments still need to be made in left-bank Ukraine," Zhukov said. "One is Kharkiv-Donetsk, and the other is the Crimean Peninsula... These two places must be defended, and they are also We can have a good fight with Germany there.”

Kharkiv-Donetsk is an industrial and mining area, which means there are many industrial and mining towns there that can be held out - factories, mines, and cities housing workers all have very strong buildings. Moreover, there are many Russian and Ukrainian workers and their families in the Kharkiv-Donetsk area. These people are all supporters of the Bolshevik Party and have a very good mass base.

Although the Crimean Peninsula does not have a mass base to rely on, it does have easy-to-defend terrain and the Sevastopol naval fortress.

"As long as we can hold out in Kharkiv-Donetsk and the Crimean Peninsula until August," Zhukov paused and said, "then we have a chance to delay the war until after the mud season next spring, or ...to fight the Germans this winter."

Zhukov's idea is still the old way of delaying time. The decisive battle in winter is just to fool Stalin. Because the experience of the winter of 1942 has shown that the Germans will never repeat Napoleon's mistakes.

Stalin also understood what Zhukov was thinking. He asked: "Are we going to fight the Germans around Leningrad in the north while delaying in Crimea and Kharkiv-Donetsk in the south?"

"Yes." Zhukov frowned and said, "Comrade General Secretary, all we can do now is delay..."

"Can you drag it on?"

Zhukov thought for a while and replied: "If the Leningrad-Smolensk battle can be won, then we can undoubtedly drag the war into 1944 or even 1945."

"What if we don't win?" Stalin asked.

He wants to know the worst case scenario!

"Once Leningrad falls or is trapped again..." Zhukov said, "defending Moscow, the middle and lower Volga River and the Caucasus will be of decisive significance."

If Leningrad is not saved and Moscow loses again, then the Soviet Union is basically finished! If Moscow can defend itself and loses one in the middle and lower reaches of the Volga River and the Caucasus, then the Soviet Union can survive for 44 years but not for 45 years.

Because the Soviet Union's war potential is based on the Russian population, the coal, iron and food in Ukraine (including Kursk), and the oil in the Caucasus. If the Soviet Union lost Leningrad, the Russian Empress would have the support of at least a small half of the Russian population. Losing Ukraine would not only cause problems for Soviet industry, but there would also be a considerable gap in food supply. And if the Caucasus oil (or oil transportation channel) is lost, the Soviet Union's war potential will be further weakened, making it impossible to sustain the war.

"Then..." Stalin suddenly said to Zhukov in a low voice, "Once Leningrad is likely to fall, or Moscow is likely to fall, or we are going to lose the oil in the Caucasus, you must face me as soon as possible Report."

"I understand, Comrade General Secretary." Zhukov gave a military salute and was about to end his report when Lieutenant General Kokopev, Chief of the Operations Department of the General Staff Headquarters, walked quickly to Zhukov and handed him a note.

Zhukov picked up the note and took a look at it, with a very sad expression on his face.

"What's wrong?" Stalin asked.

"It's Comrade Lukin's telegram." Zhukov said, "The enemy has attacked near his headquarters..."

It turned out that this telegram was sent by General Lu Jin, the commander of the 5th Tank Army. His army had been fighting the Germans for nearly 20 days near Collective Farm No. 13, and now it was finally on the verge of total annihilation.

"Lukin is a good comrade!" Stalin sighed. "His 5th Tank Army fought the best in this joint battle. The current situation... He and the commanders and soldiers of the 5th Tank Army The political workers and political workers have no responsibility at all. We must never forget them. They are the heroes of the Soviet Union. Comrade Zhukov, tell Comrade Lukin these words by telegram."

Being able to persist for 20 days under the overwhelming advantage of the German armored group, General Lukin is indeed worthy of being a Soviet hero. And Stalin's words were not in vain - in fact, he "pardoned" Lukin and the remnants of the 5th Tank Army for their "treason."

Lu Jin and his comrades can surrender and become prisoners with peace of mind!

When General Lukin received the telegram from the Supreme Command, he was in his last headquarters, the No. 13 Collective Farm Field Building. The 5th Tank Army was now compressed in two or three groups around this building. There were less than a few thousand people left on the ruins covering an square kilometer, and half of them were wounded.

This half-collapsed building once took place in a battle that shocked even Bolshevik generals like General Lukin. A small group of SS officers and soldiers from Ukraine resisted tenaciously here and fought to the end with unimaginable determination and determination. No one surrendered...even if Lu Jin personally promised to spare their lives. In the end, everyone died heroically, including a Ukrainian female sniper (Pavlyuchenko).

In the end, these people were buried with military honors, and Lukin also asked the engineers of the 5th Tank Army to erect tombstones for them. As a veteran who participated in the Soviet-Russian Revolutionary War, Lukin certainly knew the situation in "Little Russia" (the old name of Ukraine). In the era of Tsarist Russia, there was basically a Ukrainian independence movement, which was also extremely unknown and insignificant. In the era of Tsarist Russia, the Russian Empire was a country with a very strong religious atmosphere. In the "Little Russia" where Orthodoxy was strong, opposing the Tsar meant opposing Orthodoxy (the Tsar was the Orthodox leaders).

So ordinary little Russians (mostly peasants) would never think about opposing the Tsar and Russia... This is tantamount to opposing God!

But now, these Ukrainians have become the mortal enemies of the Soviet Union, and their performance on the battlefield is more tenacious than the authentic German army and the Soviet Red Army.

Thinking of this, General Lu Jin just sighed and said to the staff beside him: "Send military envoys to the Germans..."