The Rise of the Third Reich

August 18, 1942, 10 am.

General Pavlov, the commander of the Soviet Western Front, stood in front of a huge map with his hands behind his back and remained silent. Around him, there were cheers one after another.

"Warsaw! Ulla! Poland! Ulla! World revolution! Ulla..."

Almost everyone in the headquarters was cheering heartily, and some people found vodka from somewhere and drank it.

Their joy was justified, because the troops of the German 6th Army guarding the northwest of Warsaw suddenly retreated last night! This seemingly invincible reactionary army, which had been fighting hard for more than two months with the Western Front of the Red Army around Warsaw and caused heavy casualties to the Red Army, withdrew from Warsaw in disgrace, handing over the victory of the Battle of Warsaw to The great Soviet Red Army.

The first major victory of the world revolution was finally won by the soldiers of the Western Front!

But at this time, Comrade Pavlov, the commander of the Western Front, was not happy at all, and his brows were getting tighter and tighter, as if he was not a victorious general, but a prey that fell into a trap.

On the map, the latest battle developments have been marked in detail. The Western Front's current position is a huge protrusion. It seems that it has bumped into the German front line and used brute force to forcefully knock it out. Like a big pit.

However, the Lviv-Carpathian Voivodeship (Poland) and Lesser Poland Voivodeship to the south of this protrusion is basically still firmly under the control of the German army. The Southwest Front's attack on Lviv also failed because its troops were diverted to reinforce Leningrad.

To the north of the Polish salient, the East Prussia-Lithuania-Baltics and other areas were also completely under the control of the German army. The German troops on the northern front even launched a fierce attack on Leningrad when Warsaw was in danger, and now they have surrounded Leningrad. This probably shows that the German troops on the northern front are quite abundant and fully capable of reinforcing the Warsaw battlefield. But why didn't the Germans return aid? Did he really just want to force the Red Army to withdraw troops from Warsaw and return reinforcements by attacking Leningrad?

What are the Germans doing? Do you really want to use the Polish salient as a big bag to eat up the Western Front? This appetite is too much, right? The Western Front now has more than one million people, and the reserve fronts in Belarus and Smolensk now have one million people! Although the Southwest Front Army has been weakened a bit, it still has one million men.

Three large clusters with a total strength of nearly 4 million people are now so close together, how could they be swallowed up by the Germans? Devour nearly 4 million Red Army soldiers in one go? Even if you can swallow it, you can't digest it, right?

Or was the German target really Leningrad? Pavlov turned his target again to Leningrad, and the Germans and Finns had now completed the siege of Leningrad.

This is a big city with two to three million people! If it is besieged for several months, the food and reserves will most likely be exhausted, leaving so many people without food, and the city cannot be defended. And Leningrad is a city that cannot be lost, so the Supreme Command will definitely launch an operation to rescue Leningrad this fall or winter, and Germany will just launch a decisive battle near Leningrad with the Red Army who went to rescue the siege.

In addition to the Polish Bulge and Leningrad, the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus on the southern front may also become targets of German attacks. The Caucasus is particularly dangerous. It is the most important oil-producing area of ​​the Soviet Union. Although the Second Baku Oil Field has been developed, the oil in Baku and Grozny still accounts for 50-60% of the total oil production of the Soviet Union. Once captured by Germany, The fuel supply of the Soviet mechanized forces would have to be reduced by half! The fuel available for the German army will increase by more than 20 million tons.

As an expert in mechanized warfare, Pavlov knew very well what an additional supply of 20 million tons of oil a year would mean to Germany.

If the Germans use all of these 20 million tons for the army, then the size of their mechanized forces will be increased by more than 300%!

The Soviet Union will have to reduce the size of its mechanized forces due to lack of fuel. At that time, the Soviet mechanized forces will not only be at a qualitative disadvantage, but also lose their quantitative advantage.

It is obvious that the Soviet Union is now slipping into comprehensive strategic passivity. The occupation of Warsaw not only failed to turn passivity into initiative, but made the Soviet Union's strategic situation even more passive!

Because Warsaw is the capital of Poland and a city with great influence in Europe and the world. Moreover, Warsaw is the most important revolutionary achievement since the outbreak of the world revolution. The liberation of Warsaw was a huge inspiration to the Soviet Union and working people all over the world.

Therefore, once Warsaw falls into the hands of the Soviet Union, the Red Army must defend it as much as possible - working people all over the world are craning their necks to watch! If Warsaw was recaptured by the Germans within a few days of its liberation, would the world revolution have failed? How discouraged will the working people be then?

And if we want to hold on to Warsaw as much as possible, then the more than one million troops of the Western Front will not have to do anything else but dig trenches and squat in pits around Warsaw. This is equivalent to the Germans using an empty city of Warsaw to trap the entire Western Front!

As for letting the Western Front that occupied Warsaw continue its efforts to attack Berlin, which is 500 kilometers away, Pavlov could not even think about it now.

At this time, the excited voice of Military Commissar Bulganin came from behind him: "Comrade Pavlov, Comrade Beirut of the Polish Bolshevik Party just called, saying that the Central Committee of the Polish Bolshevik Party and the Polish revolutionary government want to move to Warsaw as soon as possible. Comrade Beirut also wants to hold a grand military parade and Warsaw liberation celebration in Warsaw.”

The current leader of the Polish Bolshevik Party is named Boleslaw Beirut. He was a lucky man. Before the Third International ordered the ban of the Polish Bolshevik Party, he was a senior member of the Polish Bolshevik Party and should have been shot. But he was lucky enough to be arrested by Piłsudski police, imprisoned in a Polish prison, and sentenced to 5 years in prison.

Since he was imprisoned in Piłsudski's prison, he was no longer under the control of the Soviet NKVD. So during the most miserable years of the Polish Bolshevik Party, he ate peacefully in Piłsudski's prison.

In 1938, after the Great Purge, he was released from prison. At this time, Germany had not yet invaded the Soviet Union, so naturally he would not be lured by Natalie to join the anti-G-revolutionary Polish National Socialist Party. So he wandered around Polish society for more than a year. When Germany invaded, he fled to the east bank of the Bug River. As a result, he fell into the hands of the liberating Soviet Red Army.

However, although Stalin had not yet planned to launch a world revolution at this time, he already had thoughts of falling out with Germany. So Comrade Beirut was brought to Moscow, and he received special allowances and was allocated housing in accordance with the standards of leaders of fraternal parties. However, he was not allocated a wife because he came to Moscow with his wife.

In 1942, when Stalin was preparing to re-establish the Bolshevik Party in Poland, he found that other old Bolsheviks with similar qualifications as Beirut had either been shot by the Soviet Union or betrayed the revolution and followed the Germans. Only Beirut was comfortable in Moscow. dawdle. So the promising job of the great leader of Poland became available to him.

.......

"Oh," Pavlov responded, turned back to look at Bulganin, and suddenly said something very frustrating: "Comrade Military Commissar, should we discuss the issue of defending Warsaw?"

"Defend Warsaw?" Bulganin was stunned.

"Yes, this is a very urgent matter." Pavlov nodded and said seriously, "Because the enemy has not yet failed... We underestimated the military strength of the Germans. They are stronger than we thought. They are There will be a counterattack soon. I think we should prepare to switch to strategic defense."

"Strategic defense?" Bulganin could figure out what strategic defense meant. "Comrade Pavlov, do you think we don't have the strength to continue attacking to the west or north? Maybe we should attack north to liberate Danzisk and surround the entire German Army Group Northern."

Pavlov shook his head and said: "This is impossible, it is impossible, and it makes no sense, because the control of the Baltic Sea is firmly controlled by Germany. Even if we capture Danzi, we can't talk about encircling the German Northern Army." group."

After occupying Warsaw, using the Western Front to attack Danzig northward was a plan proposed in the "Thunderstorm Plan". The prerequisite for implementing this plan is to annihilate a large number of German troops in the Battle of Warsaw. At the same time, the Red Air Force will gain an advantage over the German Air Force and be able to block the Baltic Sea from the sky.

But now these two conditions do not exist at all. The German losses in Warsaw are not large, and air superiority has also been obtained by the Germans.

Pavlov said: "And now that the Western Front can no longer attack, we have invested too many troops in Poland. As a result, there are insufficient troops in the directions of Leningrad, Ukraine and the Caucasus.

Our hard-fought battle in Poland for more than two months has shown that we do not have the strength to liberate Poland and Germany in one fell swoop. We must give up the idea of ​​quick victory and use a protracted war of attrition to weaken Germany.

The protracted war of attrition will be fully launched in various directions such as Leningrad, Ukraine and the Caucasus, so it is impossible for us to keep more than 3 million troops on the Warsaw-Smolensk line for a long time. Therefore, we must be prepared to use fewer troops to conduct defensive operations in Warsaw and turn Warsaw into a flesh and blood mill that consumes the German army's vitality! This is my opinion on the Polish battlefield and the entire Soviet-German battlefield as the commander of the Western Front. "