While Ogisu was preparing for the final battle, Zhukov planned a counterattack of unprecedented scale.
Starting from mid-September, Zhukov asked the Soviet government to plan a large-scale deployment of combat supplies to the front line to make up for the losses in the previous operations. By early October, the Soviet Union urgently transported another 60,000 tons of arms supplies to the Raomenkan area, of which only artillery shells
More than 20,000 tons!
After all, the war on the Western Front has come to an end. The Soviet army on the Polish battlefield, under the overall planning and coordination of Timoshenko, finally successfully ended the war against Poland in early October.
Although the area of land occupied was not satisfactory and was much less than Stalin expected. However, it still advanced nearly 140 kilometers westward, barely achieving the strategic goal of establishing a military buffer zone facing Germany in the west.
That's right, 140 kilometers! This is a full 50 kilometers longer than the distance Timoshenko actually conquered!
It was not because Timoshenko dared to deceive Stalin in this final report. The real reason for the extra 50 kilometers was that the German army retreated and gave up the 50 kilometers after secret contact with Khrushchev and Yezhov.
, so that they could turn around and report to Stalin.
As for the reason why the German army made this decision, it was not purely to help Khrushchev and others do good things.
After receiving the request from Khrushchev and others, the First SS Armored Division, which occupied the dividing line between the Soviet and German armies, immediately notified Reinhard by telegram. After weighing it repeatedly, Reinhard thought it would be profitable.
, approved Ribbentrop to secretly rush to the border line to negotiate with full authority.
Reinhard's request to Ribbentrop was that Khrushchev and the others could trade 500,000 prisoners of war in exchange for the German army retreating 50 kilometers.
In addition, this transaction has two additional requirements.
First, none of the 500,000 prisoners of war must be left out. Because in Reinhardt’s plan, Germany needed so many people to fill the labor and construction corps in the newly built labor camp. The Polish campaign has begun to wrap up, and the German army is about to begin a new campaign.
Round of resource integration, weapons production**. The labor force currently needed by Germany is determined not to be too much.
Second, 50 kilometers is the maximum concession that Germany can make. It cannot be more than an inch. Even if Khrushchev can recruit more workers, this point must not be compromised. After all, Germany also needs a military buffer against the Soviet Union.
area, and the more, the better.
Of course, Reinhardt also made some small adjustments to the 50 kilometers of retreat in his plan.
First of all, the German army will not retreat evenly for the 50 kilometers, but will retain a slightly less obvious arc, that is, a slightly less distance of 5 to 6 kilometers on both wings.
In this way, when the German army and the Soviet army fight in the future, they can use these slightly forward wings to dispatch armored units, making it easier to carry out encirclement operations.
Furthermore, the Soviet army seemed to have won more buffer space, but in fact it moved the advantageous defensive area connecting the Vistula and Bug rivers in the northwest to the plains, which was even more unfavorable for future resistance to German armor.
force.
This little secret trick was made after Reinhard asked Keitel, the veteran Chief of Staff of the Wehrmacht, and made sure it was feasible. Not to mention the two politicians Khrushchev and Yezhov, even if they were defeated by them,
General Timoshenko, known as the famous Soviet general, also failed to discern the clues.
Although they were calculated, Khrushchev and the others were not aware of it. Instead of spending any time thinking about it, they put all their energy on how to collect the 500,000 prisoners of war.
In fact, the Soviet army on the Eastern Front did not fight as well as they reported to Stalin. Not only did they suffer heavy losses, but they were far from one-tenth of the results of other German armies. If Timoshenko had not had some real skills, he would have caught him in time.
The Soviet army may have to struggle on the border for a few more days without the fighter planes left by Polish general Filipowicz and his troops.
The battle was won, but the prisoners were not much shaken.
Even if you include the militiamen recruited by the Polish army to make up the numbers, the full target is only 300,000, which is still a full 200,000 short of the target of 500,000 prisoners of war!
Now that the war is over, where can we replace these 200,000?
Khrushchev and Yezhov were indeed experts in politics, with all kinds of dirty tricks at their fingertips and endless whimsical ideas.
They calculated it together and decided that since Polish prisoners of war could not be obtained, they would use Polish civilians. It would be enough to capture strong men in the Polish war zone under the control of the Soviet army and call them militiamen.
Anyway, what the Germans want is young and strong workers, so just follow this requirement when they are hunting for young men.
As for the guilty conscience... they don't think there's anything wrong with this!
In the first place, politicians are not for ordinary people to be, and there are only a few crooked people in the political world who can take the stage. Moreover, they were able to reach their current position in the Soviet political arena. Khrushchev and Yezhov thought that they were nothing.
Good people.
In their eyes, the most important thing is to end the war on the Western Front as well as possible before Zhukov achieves great results on the Eastern Front!
As long as you can deliver in front of the General Secretary, win the battle, and occupy even an inch more land, everything else doesn't matter!
Although he was disgusted by Khrushchev and Yezhov's unconscionable methods of doing things, Timoshenko turned a blind eye and did not pay much attention to this matter.
Speaking of which, those two people were polite enough to him. The war in Poland turned the three of them into grasshoppers tied to a rope.
Besides, if he went back to report with this record of less than 90 kilometers, he would not explain it to Stalin later. Could he still admit that he was indeed inferior to the German generals and was just an ordinary person?
For any general, admitting such a thing would be a great shame for the general. Moreover, in the Soviet Union, such a general might even be exiled to Siberia to build socialist projects.
From this point of view, Zhukov, who fought in the Far East, looked much luckier.
First, he did not have disgusting high-level politicians like Khrushchev and Yezhov around him. Although the political commissar sent to "assist" Zhukov was stupid, he was able to fool him and did not affect his military plan.
The second and most important point is that Zhukov himself has excellent military qualities that are not inferior to those of the German generals. He is more than enough to deal with Lieutenant General Ogisu Tatehee of the Kwantung Army.
On October 10, the day when the German army had just captured the city of Warsaw and the outcome was determined by one round, Zhukov also held the last pre-war meeting before the final round of the strongest counterattack for the upcoming decisive move.
"The Japanese commander has withdrawn all the shrinkable troops. He would do this only to plan the strongest attack!" In the conference room, Zhukov confidently explained to his generals with his hands behind his back.
The preparations had been made long ago. In this final pre-war meeting, Zhukov and his generals did not even need to compare the map to sort out the next combat mission.
Looking at his generals who had been well prepared, Zhukov nodded with satisfaction: "The Japanese army and we are both preparing for a decisive battle. The only competition now is who is faster."
