When the coast was blocked by the Royal Navy, the German Navy did not sit still and wait for death. Instead, under the command of Navy Commander Karl Dönitz, it launched the unprecedented "Hannibal" operation.
When people think of large-scale evacuation, "Dunkirk" always comes to mind first.
The "Hannibal" operation was far larger in scale, longer, and more brutal than Dunkirk, and it lacked attention.
The background of Operation "Hannibal" begins with the carving up of Poland by Russia and Germany in 1939.
After Russia and Germany partitioned Poland, a large number of Germans immigrated to Poland. After the Russo-German War broke out, a large number of Germans also went to Russia. At that time, all Germans cheered for Germany's growing living space.
In 44 years, major changes occurred on the Russian-German battlefield. The Russian army turned to counterattack, and the German army retreated steadily. A large number of people in East Prussia, Courland, and Poland had no time to retreat and faced the threat of retaliation from the Russian army.
Although Big Beard did not openly express threats to the Germans, the Germans knew very well what they had done to Russian prisoners of war.
Once Big Beard learns how the Germans tortured Russian prisoners of war, the Germans in Russian-controlled areas will suffer crazy revenge from the Russians.
At this time, Mustache had gone crazy and demanded that the army and civilians not retreat even a step and fight to the end.
Karl Dönitz knew very well how terrifying the Russians were when they went crazy, so with a mustache on his back, he formulated the "Hannibal" plan for a large-scale evacuation of soldiers and civilians.
The core of the "Hannibal" plan was to use all available forces to evacuate the encircled Germans to Denmark, which was still under German occupation. This faced a thorny problem.
Operation "Hannibal" was launched too late. By the time Karl Dönitz made up his mind, the Russian army had surrounded East Prussia, cut off the Polish corridor, and the only escape route was the Baltic Sea.
At this time, the Baltic Sea was full of crises. Allied bombers were frantically intercepting the sea, and Russian submarines were patrolling under the sea. In order to increase the speed, Karl Dönitz could only use a large number of civilian ships with weak protection. Once these civilian ships encountered torpedoes,
and mines, the consequences can be imagined.
Although the road ahead was difficult and dangerous, Karl Dönitz had no choice. Thinking of the millions of Russian prisoners of war who were tortured and killed by the Germans in various ways, Karl Dönitz shuddered.
Think about Russia's domestic clean-up and the Katyn Forest massacre. When the Russians go crazy, they will only be more violent than the Germans.
On January 21, Dönitz sent the famous signal "HANNIBAL" to all German naval ships. This signal was originally an order for German submarines to withdraw westward to Germany, but now it became an order to start the evacuation work.
Following Dönitz's order, Operation "Hannibal" quickly began.
Dönitz's judgment was correct. The journey was doomed to be full of dangers. On the second day of the operation, a luxury cruise ship named "Wilhelm Gustloff" was sunk. There were about 10,000 German refugees on board.
Only 900 people survived.
The Wilhelm Gustlov was sunk by the Russian submarine S-13.
According to German official regulations, the "Wilhelm Gustloff" can carry a total of 3,000 people.
However, when the "Wilhelm Gustloff" was in the port of Gotenhafen, the Russian army had already launched an attack. The port was crowded with frightened Germans, and everyone wanted to leave here as quickly as possible.
Stay away from the threat of Russian troops.
In the extremely chaotic situation, the port management had to stop recording the relevant information of the people boarding the ship. As a result, the number of people boarding the ship far exceeded the prescribed number, including many children who were sent aboard by their parents.
This was one of the few shining points of humanity during the war. In the face of danger, everyone left their hope of survival to their children.
On the night of the 22nd, the "Wilhelm Gustloff" was escorted by German minesweepers to Denmark. This was because the Allies dropped too many mines in the Baltic Sea in order to block the Baltic Sea, so the "Wilhelm Gustloff"
"The HMS" must rely on minesweepers to open a way out of this huge minefield in the Baltic Sea.
After the outbreak of the war, the "Wilhelm Gustloff" was requisitioned by the German army as a hospital ship. Due to well-known reasons, the "Wilhelm Gustloff" did not implement strict light control, so it was used by Russian S-13
The submarine was discovered.
The Russian submarine S-13 did not know that all the people on board the "Wilhelm Gustloff" were civilians. It thought that the "Wilhelm Gustloff" was a German warship, so it reported to the "Wilhelm Gustloff"
"Trov" launched three torpedoes.
It's so cold in the Baltic Sea in January that a normal person would freeze to death within a few minutes if he couldn't be rescued in time after falling into the water.
In the previous war, the "Wilhelm Gustloff" lost most of its lifeboats, leaving only about a dozen usable.
Despite the full rescue efforts of German minesweepers, only more than 900 people were rescued in the end, and more than 9,000 people died in the Baltic Sea. It was called the worst maritime disaster in the 20th century.
The tragic fate of the "Wilhelm Gustloff" did not stop Dönitz. The German navy was still in action. As more and more ships arrived in Denmark, more and more Germans were evacuated and they were sunk.
There were also more and more ships. In order to take more people away, the German Navy filled even the small submarines with people, even though some submarines could only carry a dozen people.
At present, Operation "Hannibal" is still in progress, and hundreds of thousands of Germans have been evacuated to the German mainland.
From this perspective, Operation "Hannibal" was a success.
However, Karl Dönitz and those Germans who were rejoicing to have escaped could never have imagined that even if they escaped back to Germany, they would not be able to escape the gift of fate.
Patton had no pity for the Germans who were buried at the bottom of the sea. Just as described in The Beheaded Queen: The gift of fate has already been secretly marked with a price.
When the German army conquered Europe, the Germans were all cheering. Regardless of whether they took the initiative or not, they all enjoyed the war dividends brought by the German army's rule in Europe.
Now that the tide has receded, all Germans will pay the price.
If Patton sympathized with the Germans buried at the bottom of the sea, then who would mourn the soldiers who died resisting the German invasion and the victims who were driven into the bathroom like ducks by the German army?
Speaking of bathroom——
Many people may not know that Oskar Schindler, the prototype in "Schindler's List", spent millions of his fortune to protect more than a thousand Hebrews during World War II.
As a result, after World War II, Schindler asked for help from the American Hebrew Joint Distribution Committee because his family was depleted and his life was difficult. In the end, he only received US$15,000, which was far from what Schindler spent.
In 1960, Schindler went bankrupt and once again asked the Hebrews he had helped for a helping hand.
This time the Hebrews he helped repaid Schindler with a little more kindness, but it was only $16,000.
So stop talking about how smart the Hebrews are. With Oskar Schindler’s jewels in front, if the Hebrews encounter a similar situation in the future, who would want to be the second Oskar Schindler.
In return, the German John Rabe, who helped many Chinese during the Jinling Massacre, fell into trouble in 1948 after Germany surrendered.
In 1948, after the Jinling government at that time learned that Rabe's family could only eat vegetable soup and could not even afford bread, they raised 100 million yuan for Rabe in just a few days.
Let’s not talk about how much purchasing power the 100 million yuan has because of soaring prices.
Taking into account the situation in Germany at the time, the Jinling government sent people to buy milk powder, sausages, beef and other foods in Switzerland, packaged them and sent them to Rabe to prevent Rabe from being unable to buy things even if he had money.
Do you think this is the end?
not yet.
In 2020, when the epidemic broke out in Germany, the embassy in Germany received a call from Rabe's grandson Thomas Rabe, a professor of gynecology at Heidelberg University, asking for help.
At that time, due to the epidemic, there was an extreme shortage of supplies in the country.
Under this circumstance, the embassy still raised 30,000 masks, 200 sets of protective clothing, and 620 bottles of medicine as quickly as possible and sent them to Germany.
Forgot to mention, Thomas Rabe also received the Friendship Award from the state in 2018.
Comparing the two makes a judgment, so don’t tie the Hebrews to the Chinese. We don’t deserve to be compared with loan sharks.
Back to the spring of 1945.
Exactly 15 days after the Southern African Expeditionary Force broke through the Rhine River, Kesselring arrived belatedly.
By this time, the airborne operations of the British and American coalition forces had completely failed. The British and American coalition forces participating in the airborne operations had lost a total of 17,000 people, including 3,400 casualties from the 82nd Airborne Division and 3,800 casualties from the 101st Airborne Division.
Airborne to the forefront, the British 1st Airborne Division and the Polish Parachute Brigade, responsible for capturing the Arnhem Bridge, suffered even more heavy losses without any assistance.
The Polish Parachute Brigade suffered nearly 700 casualties among its 1,000 airborne personnel.
The 1st Airborne Division suffered nearly 7,000 casualties and captured personnel, and less than 2,000 men successfully broke out from the siege of German tanks.
After the war, the commander of the 1st Airborne Division lamented when facing the Arnhem Bridge that they could never reach: That bridge is too far for us!
The failure of the Anglo-American coalition did not scare the Southern African Expeditionary Force at all. Instead, it aroused Patton's ridicule. Patton felt that if Eisenhower and Montgomery paid such a high price to allow the Southern African Expeditionary Force to attract German firepower, this would
It’s too wasteful of money.
"Normally, you can't look at the battlefield performance of the British and American coalition forces in isolation. You should combine the British and American coalition forces' operations with the situation on the Austrian battlefield." Yang Smozi was not surprised. The Angsa people never accepted lessons, otherwise World War II would have been a disaster.
It won't break out.
On the Austrian battlefield, the Axis forces were completely different when facing the British and American Southern Allied forces and the Russian army.
When facing the Anglo-American Allied Forces, the Axis troops showed no fighting spirit. They did not resist at all, and did not even escape. They actively stayed in the camp and waited to be captured.
When facing the Russian army, the Axis forces refused to retreat. Even the Austrian servants showed great fighting spirit and fought bloody to the end.
Both the Austrians and the Germans knew very well that if they surrendered to the Russians, the Russians would surely liquidate their crimes during the war.
Surrendering to the British and American Southern Allied Forces might allow you to escape disaster. After all, there is no deep hatred between the two sides that cannot be resolved.
Eisenhower and Montgomery must have been influenced by the Austrian battlefield and brought the German troops in the Netherlands into the Axis forces in Austria, so they suffered a bloody blow.
"We have to remind Lei Zhen not to make similar mistakes as Eisenhower and Montgomery -" Patton had a sense of crisis. The smooth sailing of the Southern African Expeditionary Force was not a good thing.
It is said that arrogant soldiers will be defeated, and the Southern African Expeditionary Force now has a tendency to become "arrogant soldiers".
Patton did not want to see Remagen become the Waterloo of the Southern African Expeditionary Force.
"I've seen General Lei Zhen's plan, and it shouldn't be——" Yang Smozi looked forward to Lei Zhen's success in winning a glorious victory similar to the Battle of Volgograd.
If you think about it carefully, Remagen and Volgograd really have a lot of similarities.
They are also backed by a big river, and both parties involved in the war also have reasons and confidence to win.
The difference is that the German army in Remagen is also completely different from the German army during the Battle of Volgograd.
It is roughly equivalent to the gap between the German army and the German servant army.
And it's not a servant army like Austria, but Italy.
"The battle in Cologne is over. I am going to parachute Cologne's paratroopers to the rear of Kesselring's troops, use a double insurance, and fight a perfect battle of annihilation." Patton still has a trump card in his hand to annihilate Kesselring's troops.
At the same time, let Eisenhower and Montgomery take a look at how the airborne troops should be used.
"The air force must also be prepared. If we want to compete with the Russians for time, the air force is our only hope." Yang Smuts did not give up Berlin, the biggest piece of meat.
To conquer Berlin and capture or kill Mustache with your own hands was an irresistible temptation for all the Allied forces, and it was enough to leave a mark in history.
The World War is almost over now. The Southern African Expeditionary Force has not actually fought a single tough battle. The Russians have snatched up all the bamboo shoots on the mountains.
When future generations talk about this protracted world war, it is either Moscow or Volgograd. Even the North African campaign and Normandy will be touted. The halo of southern Africa is at most tied with the United Kingdom and the United States. It is a shame!
Of course, Southern Africa is not without its shining points. In the Philippines and the Malay Peninsula, as well as in Operation Dragoon, the Southern African Expeditionary Force performed very well, at least it was capable of doing so.
However, in East Asia and "Dragoon", the Southern African Expeditionary Force faced Japanese and German second-line troops, and did not directly confront the real elite German troops.
The troops under Kesselring are the undisputed elite of Germany.
Although compared with the Elite in 1939, the quality of the current "Elite" is obviously insufficient.
But the criteria for judging "quality" will change. As long as the southern African propaganda department is fully activated, gray can also become white.
