The prisoner-of-war camp in Shebinka was built next to forests and swamps. It now houses more than 3,200 captured Soviet commanders and fighters, guarded by a company of SS soldiers.
There were 30,000 Soviet commanders and fighters who entered this prisoner-of-war camp after being captured. After entering the prisoner-of-war camp, the SS would screen them. All officers, political workers, and Jews were taken to the nearby forest and let
They dug a hole. After the hole was dug, they shot all the commanders and soldiers.
The surviving prisoners of war had to do heavy labor every day. Due to the harsh working and living environment, many prisoners of war with weak constitutions were exhausted to death; some prisoners of war were ruthlessly killed by the SS because they violated camp regulations.
This morning, the sun rose from the east. Thousands of prisoners of war wearing prison uniforms stood in the open land, surrounded by SS soldiers with guns. An SS officer was standing on a wooden structure.
On the stage, he held a loudspeaker and spoke loudly.
It turned out that five prisoners of war had taken advantage of shoveling snow a few days ago to dig a small hole for people to pass under the barbed wire fence on one side of the camp. After digging, they covered it with snow to make it easier for people to pass through.
As for the SS guards, they didn't notice it at all.
Last night, they sneaked out of the barracks, clawed away the snow with their hands, drilled out the barbed wire fence from the hole, and then fled towards the forest in the distance. But as they approached the forest, a prisoner of war who was lagging behind accidentally stepped on
It was hit by a mine and was blown to pieces on the spot.
The explosion alerted the SS in the camp, and they immediately dispatched with police dogs into the forest to hunt down the escaped prisoners of war. However, at dawn, one of the five escaped prisoners of war was killed by a landmine, and two were shot indiscriminately.
After being beaten to death, the remaining two people were captured and now kneeling in front of the wooden platform.
After the SS officer announced the crimes of the two prisoners of war in public, he quickly walked off the stage, came behind the two men, pulled out his pistol and shot them in the back of the head. The two prisoners of war did not even grunt.
He just threw himself to the ground.
But the SS officer was still not relieved. He took the MP40 submachine gun from a soldier next to him and fired at the two corpses, causing them to twitch on the ground and raising countless dust.
The officer fired all the bullets in the magazine in one go, threw them back to the soldiers, then walked up to the prisoners of war, grabbed an old prisoner of war, and asked sternly: "What about their escape at night?
do you know?"
"No, I don't know, Mr. Officer." The old prisoner of war hurriedly replied: "I don't know anything."
Unexpectedly, as soon as the elderly prisoner of war finished speaking, there was a clear gunshot, and then a hole appeared in his forehead. It was the shot fired by an enraged officer.
The officer threw the body of the elderly prisoner of war aside, grabbed a middle-aged prisoner of war, and asked sternly: "Do you know about their escape from prison?"
The middle-aged prisoner of war saw the gun pointed at him and knew that no matter what he said, he would be killed. He raised his head and said in a contemptuous tone: "I don't know. Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you."
The middle-aged prisoner of war's words completely angered the officer. He put the pistol against the prisoner's forehead and pulled the trigger suddenly. But the gun didn't go off. He was stunned for a moment, and then he pulled the trigger again and again, but it still didn't go off. It turned out that it was
The gun jammed.
Just when the officer was about to change his gun, there was suddenly a roar of a car motor. He turned around and saw that it was a convoy of twenty covered trucks, slowly following a barrel truck.
Slowly drove into the camp area.
When the officer saw this, he thought it was a force coming to change defenses, so he temporarily gave up his plan to shoot the middle-aged prisoner of war. He turned the handle of his gun upside down and hit the prisoner twice on the forehead. Then he put away his pistol and walked towards the convoy.
.
The middle-aged prisoner of war, who had narrowly escaped death, stood still and allowed the blood from the wound to flow down his face. He stared at the officer's back with angry eyes, eager to rush over and kill him.
After the convoy stopped, the tarpaulin behind the truck was opened, and the soldiers who jumped out were greeted by the officers and lined up next to the truck. When the SS officer walked near the barrel truck, the rear door opened and from the inside
A major of the Wehrmacht stepped out.
The SS officer was only the leader of a first-class commando squadron, which was equivalent to the rank of captain. Although the person coming was the Wehrmacht, which he had never looked down upon, the other party had a higher rank than himself, so he could only salute him first.
After the major waited for the SS officers to salute, he said slowly: "I am Major Dürer, Field Marshal Manstein's adjutant, and I have been ordered to take away all the Russian prisoners of war in the camp. This is the Marshal's order!" As he said, he read from the official document
He took out a piece of paper from his bag and handed it to the SS officer.
The SS officer took Manstein's order, read it carefully, and asked puzzledly: "Mr. Major, I would like to ask why the marshal took away these Russian prisoners of war?"
Dürer snorted softly and said displeasedly: "Captain, what has the Marshal done, do you still need to report it to you?"
"Don't dare." He was bullied by an SS officer in the prisoner of war camp, but in Manstein's eyes, he was just an inconspicuous little captain. To deal with him, he didn't even have to take action personally.
As long as he revealed this intention, other officers would naturally deal with this SS officer. Therefore, he behaved extremely respectfully in front of Major Dürer: "Mr. Major, I just want to ask if my subordinates and I have any
What do you need help with?"
Dürer came here this time and only brought more than 300 people with him. It was indeed a bit difficult to escort more than 3,000 prisoners of war to walk several kilometers to the exchange location. Since the SS officers offered to help, such free labor was naturally
No need to use it in vain. He nodded and said: "We are going to escort these Russian prisoners of war to the Russian defense line. In order to ensure that they arrive at the designated place one by one, you can take half of the guards from the guards to help us complete the task."
This escort.”
The SS officer originally wanted to ask why all the prisoners of war were escorted to the Russian defense area, and whether they were all to be shot there. But then he thought about it. He had just raised questions and was ridiculed by the other party, so he understood the point.
He closed his mouth and hid the question in his heart.
When the prisoners of war were escorted by the officers and soldiers of the National Defense Force and set off along the road, they all had numb expressions on their faces. For them, even if they were shot, there was nothing terrible. It was better than living in this damn prisoner of war camp.
Life is not as good as death.
On the road, from time to time, weak prisoners of war fell down. In the past, when encountering such situations, the German soldiers responsible for escorting usually fired at the prisoners who fell on the ground to prevent them from being rescued by the guerrillas and becoming guerrillas in the future.
A member of the team. But today, the soldiers not only did not shoot, but instead asked the prisoners of war next to them to pick up the prisoners who fell on the ground and continue to move forward.
This abnormal behavior of the German army made the prisoners of war confused. But they did not dare to speak and could only communicate with their eyes to find out what happened. But let alone the prisoners of war, even the SS guards who escorted them
, were also confused. When they saw a prisoner of war falling to the ground and were about to step forward to take his life, they were stopped by the Wehrmacht soldiers around them.
The SS soldiers were puzzled, so they secretly found their commander, reported this abnormal situation to him, and finally asked: "Mr. First Class Commando Squadron Leader, what should we do?"
The officer glared and said angrily: "Our mission is to assist the soldiers of the Wehrmacht to escort these damn Russian prisoners of war to the vicinity of the Russian defense area. As for why we can't kill those Russians who are slowing down the journey, I
How do you know what's going on? Go back quickly and fulfill your duties."
After an hour of hard march, we finally approached the defense area of the Soviet 5th Mechanized Army.
Major Dürer, who was leading the team, quickly issued an order: "Stop advancing! Everyone stay where you are!"
After issuing this order, Major Dürer ordered his driver to speed up and rush to the Soviet defense line to make contact.
The SS officer who was staying behind heard a report from his subordinates that Major Dürer was driving to the Soviet defense line for negotiations. Suddenly a terrible thought came to his mind: Major Dürer was not going to rebel.
So the Russian prisoners of war in this prisoner of war camp were specially used as a greeting gift?
He felt that if his guess was correct, it would be an opportunity to make a contribution. Regardless of the large number of Wehrmacht troops and their proximity to the Russian defense lines, as long as he exposed Major Dürer's conspiracy, he would be able to control all the troops. As for control,
If the Russian prisoners of war cause trouble during the troop movement, just kill them all.
Before deciding to take action, he took out Manstein's order again and looked at it carefully, trying to find flaws. But no matter how he looked at it, he found that the order did not look like a forgery.
Make it difficult for him.
The subordinates standing in front of him, seeing that their commander had stopped speaking, urged: "Mr. Captain of the First-Class Commando Squadron, you have to make a decision early. Otherwise, we won't be able to wait until the Major of the National Defense Force comes back with the Russians."
Already."
"Where are the officers leading the Wehrmacht?" The SS officers felt that in order to control the Wehrmacht, which outnumbered themselves, they must first start with their commanders. Now that Major Dürer is gone, the only one who can command the Wehrmacht is the Wehrmacht captain.
: "Go and invite them over!"
A few minutes later, the Wehrmacht captain appeared in front of the SS officer. He was obviously not interested in the SS and asked coldly: "Mr. First Class Commando Squadron Leader, do you have anything to do with me?"
"Mr. Captain," the SS officer said politely because he relied on the captain to control the troops: "Do you know where Major Dürer went?"
"Yes, I know." The captain replied unexpectedly: "Contact the Russians. According to the order of the Marshal, this batch of prisoners of war is to be used to replace a batch of wounded soldiers of our army, as well as General Stemerman.
's remains."
The captain's answer surprised the SS officer. After a brief absence, he asked tentatively: "Mr. Captain, are you sure you brought these Russian prisoners of war here just to exchange for our wounded soldiers and Stadt's soldiers?"
Wasn’t General Merman’s body used to surrender to the Russians?”
"How is this possible, Mr. Captain of the First Class Commando Squadron?" the captain said dissatisfied: "We are Marshal Manstein's guard troops, how can we surrender to the Russians? Even if Major Dürer ordered us to surrender, we would not surrender.
I will never obey this order."
Regarding the captain's explanation, the SS officer was still dubious. In any case, exchanging more than 3,000 Russian prisoners of war was beyond his understanding. He began to wonder whether to control this escort according to the original plan.
The Wehrmacht of Russian prisoners of war returned to their original camp after killing all the prisoners of war.
Before the SS officer could make a decision, his subordinates suddenly exclaimed: "Mr. Captain of the First-Class Commando Squadron, look, there's a convoy coming over there."
Looking in the direction of his subordinate's finger, the SS officer saw a convoy consisting of dozens of ambulances and nearly a hundred covered trucks, driving along an emergency highway not far away.
"As you can see, Mr. First Class Commando Squadron Leader." The captain sneered and said to the SS officer: "This is the convoy coming to pick up the wounded. Do you have any questions?"
"No, no," the SS officer said with a dry smile, "I was just asking, it's okay."
The person in charge sent by the German army to exchange prisoners of war was Manstein's adjutant Major Dürer. Since the German army came forward with a major, Sokov, as the commander of the group army, naturally had no need to come forward. He left the matter to
Lieutenant Colonel Ponejelin, who had just returned from Lieutenant General Fomin.
The handover ceremony went smoothly. First, the captured Soviet commanders and fighters returned to the Soviet defense area. After counting their numbers, Ukrainian civilians recruited from the army carried the injured German soldiers and Stemmermann's coffin to the German side.
.
The prisoners of war who returned to the Soviet position were still confused at this moment. They didn't know why they became the chips used by the Germans in exchange. But when they saw Ponejelin appearing in front of everyone, many of them were in Uman.
The soldiers who were captured during the battle suddenly burst into tears. They were all Ponejelin's subordinates. After three years, they naturally burst into tears when they saw their commander appearing in front of them again.
"Comrades, you have suffered!" Ponejelin, who was standing at the front of the queue, saw a crowd of commanders and soldiers wearing prison uniforms. Naturally, he could not recognize the old subordinates standing in the crowd. He said emotionally: "
Maybe you are wondering why the Germans would trade you for their wounded?"
This was indeed a question that troubled all the prisoners of war. No one spoke, but stared at Ponejelin intently, waiting for him to give the final answer.
"Before I tell you the truth, let me first introduce my identity to you." Ponejelin said: "My name is Ponejelin. At the beginning of the war, I was the commander of the 12th Group Army of the Southwest Front. Later in Uman
I was captured during the battle and stayed in a German prisoner-of-war camp for two years. It was not until half a year ago, when the troops of the 27th Army liberated Klemenkoug, that I was rescued from the prisoner-of-war camp by my own people. Today, I am
An advisor to the 53rd Army Headquarters."
"The reason why you were rescued was General Sokov, the new commander of the 53rd Army." Ponedelin continued: "Not long ago, we gave the Germans a severe lesson and annihilated nearly ten thousand of them.
People, even General Stemmermann, commander of the 11th Army, died indirectly because of us...
It was precisely because of the good results we had achieved that the Germans had to put down their dignity and come to us in a low voice. It was under this circumstance that General Sokov proposed to the Germans that they use the wounded and the body of Stemmermann to come to us.
Exchange the captured commanders and soldiers of our army. And you are the lucky ones chosen."
This chapter has been completed!