Before Loeb could reach the city of Leningrad, Bock's Army Group Center had already captured Minsk, the capital of Belarus. They then captured Smolensk, known as the "Gateway to Moscow".
The next step is to go straight to Scotch!
Although before that, Army Group Center still had to eliminate a handful of remnants of the Western Front and the reserve front brought by Zhukov.
However, the contrast in strength between the two sides is very obvious, and the strength of Army Group Center clearly has an advantage.
After all, in addition to Germany's own troops, Army Group Center also included the infantry divisions left by the Italian Russian Expeditionary Force and the Spanish 250th Corps.
In addition to the armored units and mobile units that were transferred to Army Group South for coordination, the Allied forces sent by Italy and Spain also had nearly 150,000 infantrymen left on standby under Bock to serve as infantry supplements for Army Group Center.
What the German high command is now waiting for is for Army Group Center to eliminate the approximately 280,000 Soviet troops east of Smolensk according to intelligence commanded by Zhukov and Timoshenko.
At the same time, Army Group North should capture Leningrad to liberate its own forces while further strengthening the determination of Finland's allies to attack the Soviet Union.
After that, Army Group North can coordinate with Finnish and Norwegian troops to move south.
Army Group Center can also move eastward with non-mobile forces that have not been transferred from the Russian Expeditionary Force in Italy and the Spanish 250th Corps.
The Spanish Armored Division and the Italian Mobile Force, which have successfully completed the encirclement of Kiev with Army Group South, will also head north to fight in Moscow.
As long as such a powerful force is gathered, taking Moscow will be nothing more than a large-scale military operation without any suspense.
Food drawn from Polish farms has been gradually transported to the occupied territories of Ukraine.
This was a decision made by top German officials early on, which was to completely mobilize anti-Soviet sentiment in Ukraine.
Reinhardt has been planning for many years. German companies in the Soviet Union have almost no profit, but they provide a large number of job opportunities for Ukrainians. He deliberately "squanders" the German railway and highway engineers in the Soviet Union to send bulk grain to Ukraine in a private name.
Families.
Then, when German engineers and various technical instructors were notified that Soviet-German relations were about to deteriorate, and when they were about to leave the Soviet Union, they quickly distributed all the stocks of cans and other materials that could not be taken away to the Ukrainian workers.
On the surface, it seems that it is because it is inconvenient for the Germans who are eager to leave to take away a large amount of supplies shipped to Ukraine from Germany, but in fact, this is actually a bid to win people's hearts.
This kind of approach has also been done by German engineers from the Soviet-German Cooperative in Belarus, but the best results have been achieved in Ukraine, a land that has been oppressed all year round.
German top leaders, under the guidance of Reinhardt, are increasingly exploring the benefits of winning over allies.
Compared to another time and space, the German army exploited Ukraine and Belarus even more cruelly than the Soviet government, which eventually turned the two sides against each other and wasted the support of the people in the two regions. The top German leaders in this life are simply
Went to the other extreme.
It can be said that Reinhardt had already thought about the relevant countermeasures for the future Soviet-German war when he came to this era.
Among them, first of all, he decided to consolidate friendly sentiments in Ukraine from the beginning and provide a stable rear area for future combat operations.
It is necessary to turn the entire Ukraine into a region hostile to the Soviet Union through multi-layered goodwill measures, laying a good foundation for further actions.
Even better, Ukraine can also provide the Allies with a large number of servant troops, reducing the pressure on the Allied military groups fighting in the Soviet Union, which can also be regarded as a means of turning enemies into friends.
What is gratifying is that this idea has achieved great success. The external environment is also very favorable for the German team.
Before the German army entered Ukraine, there were seven Ukrainian divisions, a prerequisite for the simultaneous uprising of two Ukrainian military commanders. This further strengthened the confidence of the German top brass in winning over the Ukrainian people.
After Rundstadt completed the siege and annihilation of Kiev and the German army fully entered Ukraine, they unexpectedly received a warm welcome from the local people with great enthusiasm. They thanked the Allied forces for their arrival as if they were welcoming liberators.
Dreaming of a better life from now on.
The better life that these Ukrainians dream of is nothing more than that everyone can have a job and be able to fill their stomachs and feed their families after work, instead of being like before, where there is no idle land and farmers still starve to death.
When the Germans opened the railway and highway cooperatives here, they already gave many Ukrainians hope.
Many ordinary people are trying their best to find a job in Germany, because this is the basic job with the highest salary in Ukraine.
All in all, Germany's New Barbarossa Plan requires Germany to maintain a steady and steady presence in Ukraine, so Rundstadt's army was in no hurry to continue advancing after occupying Ukraine.
On the one hand, Army Group South had just successfully completed the largest encirclement battle in history, and all units had exhausted their strength.
Rushing, rushing, encircling at high speed, dividing and strangulating... Whether it is armored troops or infantry divisions, they are fighting with extremely high intensity.
Even if the weapon does not require maintenance, fuel and ammunition do not need to be replenished.
Keren also needs to rest!
So Army Group South returned the Italian and Spanish mobile units lent to them by Army Group Center, and it also stopped and briefly made comprehensive repairs in Ukraine.
Many occupied areas were supplemented by infantry from Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and other Balkan allies, and maintained by a small number of German supervision teams to jointly maintain security in the rear strategic areas.
The reason why there is still a supervision team stationed in the rear together with the Allied troops is to prevent the Allied forces from oppressing the local people and causing negative consequences.
After all, what Germany's top leaders want is to win over the local people in Ukraine and Belarus, and they must ensure that the occupying forces will not do anything bad.
Of course, Army Group South was not completely idle.
The entire army group, and one army group, received a new round of combat instructions - to capture the Crimean Peninsula, and by the way, further ensure the security of the Romanian oil fields.
The person who carried out this order was Reinhard’s confidant, Lundstedt’s old subordinate, and the most proud talent of the German General Staff—General Manstein!
Manstein's army was the 11th Army, a super-large mixed army that included a German Army Group and a Romanian Army Group.