Fragment

Hitler's Instruction No. 1941 of July 7, 19:

...The 3rd Armored Corps of the Central Army Group should turn north, cut off the communication line between Leningrad and Moscow, and assist the Northern Army Group in attacking Leningrad...

"Private Wartime Diary of General Franz Halder, Chief of Staff of the German Army High Command", October 1941 (excerpt):

... The Führer made up his mind that Leningrad and Moscow must be razed to the ground and turned into uninhabited cities."This way, we don't have to feed the population all winter," he said. The genocidal operation was scheduled to be carried out by the Luftwaffe. ... said the Führer: "This national catastrophe ... will deprive not only Bolshevism but also Russian nationalism of their center." ...

Hitler's words to Marshal von Loeb:

... We must not be merciful in dealing with the aftermath of Petersburg and make every Russian tremble with fear! ... We don't need Russia, neither a hostile nor a friendly Russia, we just need a land in the East.Therefore we will never accept the surrender of either Petersburg or Moscow.You must annihilate them, reduce them to dust, and make them disappear from the face of the earth.

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It has been more than a month since the war started.

The Soviets were still unable to effectively counter the German attack, but the German advance was slowed considerably by stubborn resistance.Hitler's strategic plan to capture Leningrad in the early stages of the war and then besiege Moscow across the board could not be realized, and the battle of Smolensk between the Soviet and German armies was also stalemate.

On July 7, the Soviet Army Base Camp.Facing the full-scale attack of the German army, General Zhukov, the chief of the general staff, proposed to abandon Kiev and concentrate superior forces to carry out counter-assault operations in Yelinia to fully defend Moscow.Unexpectedly, Stalin, who was originally annoyed by this proposal, finally agreed to Zhukov's proposal with reservations (Stalin agreed to Yelinia's counter-assault, but still insisted on sticking to Kiev).On the same day, Zhukov was removed from the position of chief of staff, transferred to the commander of the general reserve, and was sent to Yelinia to command the counter-assault campaign.

"I'll go to the front with the staff, and leave early tomorrow morning." When Kulik returned home that night, he uncharacteristically woke up Katia, who was already asleep, "Help me pack the boxes, with as few things as possible."

Katia didn't ask anything, just put the clothes and daily necessities into the box one by one; she refrained from asking "where are you going" from the beginning to the end, she knew that kulik couldn't give her the answer to this question; but when she closed the box lid , she finally couldn't help but said: "Which direction are you going? I mean, do I need to bring you a thick coat?"

Kulik put down the map and red and blue pencils in his hand, he came over and hugged his wife, and kissed her sideburns: "Don't worry about anything, I will be back soon."

But they all understand that this is not a promise, maybe it is just a wish.

He heard Katia say in his arms: "Ilia, I have no right to ask you to hold back on the battlefield, but I think I should tell you now: I am pregnant, and we are the first child of our two."

On this military train, the train was full of people sitting upright; people stared out of the train silently, each with their own thoughts.

Kulik also doesn't know why the first thing Kulik felt after kitia told him about the surprise after she was pregnant; to kitia, it seemed like he shouldn't have done it without consulting her at all - or even mentioning it The decision to go out to the front lines.Although the whole thing happened with great haste - as has happened with everything since the war began; he was called into the office of the Chief of War, and he saw two stacks of paper bags lying on the table, with his files in the middle:" You served in the Far East before the end of the Nuomenkan campaign, so you have actual combat experience, right?"

"Yes."

The director took off his presbyopic glasses, put his resume back into the file bag and said: "The staff transferred people to go to the front with Comrade Zhukov. You are on the list. Do you have any questions?"

"No."

The director was very satisfied with such a straightforward answer: "Very well, I don't like people who drag their feet in mud and water; the guy answered the question just now, huh, ah, it's really embarrassing for a professional soldier. I already told him to go to logistics work tomorrow." He said Put kulik's file on a stack of file bags, and took the top one from the other stack, and said as he opened it, "Okay, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, that's it."

Thus, the turning point of fate came at such a sudden time, when he had no longer hoped.

After the Battle of Nomonkan that year, he was transferred to be Zhukov's accompanying staff officer. In people's eyes, his future was bright; Leaving the combat department, the daily work has been completely fragmented since then, and there has been no response to the report for returning to the field army.

Of course it wasn't for no reason, Kulik didn't feel the need to pretend he didn't know the reason, his silence on this point was just because he stubbornly thought it was his private matter and didn't want to mention it - his marriage with kitia.

The lesson he heard the most about this incident at the time was: "Do you think you are because of love? You are only because of the ridiculously old-fashioned so-called chivalry."

Kulik smiled silently, a good generalization perhaps, but not quite; the truth was more straightforward than that given the circumstances: both he and Katia were in need of a warm hug.

The wheels of the train hit the rails, making a monotonous clang; the black smoke from the roof and the sharp whistle of the siren quickly dispersed in the air, and the grass became dry and light in the strong wind; even in the war, the Russian The golden autumn is still coming as promised.The sun rises and sets in the evening, accompanied by clouds and clouds, and has never changed in the slightest because of the prosperity and wildness, happiness and suffering in this vast land.

In August 1812, Napoleon commanded about 8 French troops and launched an offensive and defensive battle with the Russian army in Smolensk; the result of the battle was that although the French army repelled the enemy, it failed to completely defeat them; this made the Russian army Gained the opportunity to counterattack the French army, and finally turned into a disastrous defeat of the French army's retreat in Russia.

On the wheel of history, there are moments that are dramatically repeated.

In the early autumn of 1941, Smolensk once again became a battleground between the two sides of the war; starting from July 7, the German Central Army Group and the Soviet Western Front fought fiercely here.After nearly 10 days of bloody fighting, although the Soviet army failed to achieve significant results during the counterattack, it broke the Central Army Group's attempt to attack Moscow, and at the same time forced the German army to turn westward on the last day of July. The main attack was shifted to the south side.

On the same day, with Zhukov's arrival, the Reserve Front was formed. When Kulik reported to the headquarters of the Mechanized Infantry Division, the major general greeted him unexpectedly first: "Lieutenant Colonel Kulik? I remember you."

This was really an embarrassing scene. In the face of a warm greeting from an officer whose military rank was more than one level higher than his own, Lieutenant Colonel Kulik couldn't remember who the other party was for a moment.

The major general continued: "When I saw the list, I was still thinking, the name is a little familiar; oh, you don't remember? At Nuomenkan, you brought a regiment from the reserve team to the friendly army's territory to attack the main attack, and finally you have to Shall I come forward to smooth things over?"

Kulik raised his eyebrows—he remembered: "General platov?"

In 1939, facing the escalating border conflicts in the Nomenkan area since the beginning of summer, the Kremlin decided to use decisive counterattacks to ensure the stability of the rear.The Japanese Army, which was eyeing the Far East, suffered its first complete defeat there since the Meiji Restoration.

At the end of August of that year, the mechanized units of the Soviet Army counterattacked across the board; the Kwantung Army was divided and surrounded, and the 8rd Division was surrounded by Soviet tank groups. overwhelmed.

What platov said was the battle.

At that time, after the Soviet Army had completed the encirclement of the Kwantung Army, the Japanese Army had been compressed into a rather narrow area; the group army concluded after research that the 3rd Motorized Infantry Division deployed to the east could not Independently completed the breakthrough of the Japanese defense line: "In order to ensure that the set goal of the battle is completed within the scheduled time, the staff will transfer part of the troops of a mechanized infantry regiment from the reserve team to you."

Undoubtedly, this conclusion made the commander of the 3rd Division very unhappy. He complained to the confidential secretary: "What's wrong? Don't we dare to go to war if we don't have more than three times the enemy's strength?"

It was in such a situation that when Kulik arrived at the attack position with his troops, it was disgruntled to find that the friendly troops did not show the welcoming attitude they expected.The other side also seemed disappointed to see that the officers of the reinforcement troops were handsome young men. When Kulik asked to assign a command in the direction of attack, they said with a strong attitude: "Sorry, the arrangement for the attack position is already full."

Everyone present clearly felt that the headquarters was filled with an extremely unpleasant atmosphere; after hearing these words, Kulik said coldly: "Since there is no attack position, I will take the troops to fight against it."

It is said that the slobbering lawsuit against kulik's liberalism immediately went all the way to the army staff, and finally the chiefs of staff of the two armies had to come forward to mediate; the solution was that the 3rd Infantry Division gave up the frontal attack position with a demonstrative nature, "please You are the main attacker."

In fact, the situation on the battlefield at that time was not particularly optimistic; in addition to breaking through the defense of the frontal enemy, the 3rd Division also needed to block the attack of a mechanized squadron from the right wing behind; The Kwantung Army marched in two directions to open the gap in the encirclement.

At the mobilization meeting before the launch of the general offensive, Kulik was surrounded by gazes of indifference; in this gaze, he stepped onto the stage and said: "The chief of the army group trusts us, and the fraternal troops trust us; this battle is for the Soviet Union in the Far East. Peaceful Rear!" The content was short and hardly provocative, but the calm tone and firm attitude were impressive.

"I don't think you know you're in danger," Platov told Kulik.

In fact, when kulik's troops broke through the Kwantung Army's defense line alone and dangerously, the blocking force almost collapsed under the fierce attack of the Kwantung Army due to lack of preparation; the head of the blocking force even called the group army and asked to follow The 3rd division troops behind the reserve team turned around to support their blocking defense line, and this change in deployment is very likely to trap kulik in the danger of being surrounded without support.

"Fortunately, there was a staff officer in the blocking force at that time. I kind of forget his name. Anyway, at that time, he tried his best to persuade the regiment commander to organize a counterattack in a very short period of time with a company in charge of the guard of the regiment headquarters, forcing the Japanese army to retreat temporarily. The withdrawal slowed the attack and bought time for the troops to reorganize their defenses."

"Abt, AlexanderAbt," Kulik said. "In that sense, I can say he saved me."

"You can't say that, you were the one who saved you; I remember that you and your troops acted fiercely at that time. After the initial breakthrough, they quickly turned to attack on both sides, completely ripping apart the Japanese defense line facing us. ;This situation won you the respect of the 3rd Division, and also allowed the follow-up troops to quickly pass through the attack area." Platov took a deep breath, "These memories are still very exciting in retrospect, aren't they?"

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