USSR 1941

  Chapter 824 Preparation time

Paulus thinks what Yakov said is reasonable, because there are hundreds of thousands of people in an army group, especially there are many different elements of the army... Because the Sixth Army is the main force to attack Stalingrad, it has already exceeded the number of the Sixth Army. Although it has only five armies, more than 20 divisions and more than 300,000 people, it still commands hundreds of thousands of Romanian and Italian troops. In addition, many were transferred to Stalingrad in the middle and late stages for the construction of the airport. , engineers to support logistics, as well as airport technicians, logistics personnel, and special operations teams for maintaining law and order, searching for spies, and guerrillas.

   Paulus couldn't be sure how many, because troop numbers change quickly and are difficult to accurately count on the battlefield (one of the reasons is that there are too many surrenders every day), but everyone counts close to a million.

   Among them, the Romanian army and the Italian army don't have to worry, they have long hoped to surrender and even have already done so.

  Paulus had to worry about his own troops instead...because some of them were SS troops who came to reinforce them later, they were fanatical followers of Hitler, and they might not obey his orders to surrender.

There are also special operations teams, they also obey Hitler's orders and often fight to the end...the special operations teams have more reasons to fight to the end, because these people do a lot of evil, including civilians, so usually the Russians will not be soft on them , it is hard to say if there is an amnesty.

   Therefore, Paulus also thought it would take a few days to prepare, so he agreed without thinking too much.

   Paulus asked only one question: "So, how do we ensure that there are no further casualties on the contact line?"

   "A truce!" Yakov replied: "We will order the troops to stop attacking and defend their positions, and you should do the same!"

   "No problem!" Paulus replied.

  The German "air transport" has just been transferred to the Don Army, and the supplies of the 6th Army are running out, so it's just a truce to breathe a sigh of relief.

   "But..." Yakov said: "I can't guarantee that some soldiers will not obey the order and start a small-scale conflict. I hope that will not destroy our agreement!"

  Paulus understood this: "Me too, I can't guarantee the same, but I will try my best to control it!"

  Sometimes things like the battlefield are uncertain. It doesn't mean that the commander shouted "truce" and the front line died down without firing a single shot.

  In fact, soldiers on the front line will often be jealous of each other because of the sacrifice of their comrades in battle. What the commander can do is to prevent them from launching a large-scale charge, but cannot prevent them from cold shooting, sneak attack, assassination, etc.

   Those who died in the past few days can be said to be worthy of the name. As long as they were not dazzled by anger, they could have lived until the end of the battle.

   So the negotiation ended happily.

  Colonel Paulus and Bergmann returned to the details of the headquarters' secret plan to surrender, discussing how to quickly control the SS and special operations teams in the first place and eliminate some unstable factors to avoid more casualties.

   What they don't know is that Yakov will let them surrender after three days is not just as simple as telling them to prepare.

   Or it can be said that Shulka's idea is not that simple.

  In fact, from the perspective of the Soviet army, the Soviet army hopes that there will be inconsistent voices and even **** conflicts within the German surrender troops, which is beneficial to the Soviet army.

  On the one hand, the more chaotic the German army means that it is easier to control and there will be no such thing as sudden resistance.

   On the other hand, the **** conflicts between the German army and even the fierce battle between the Wehrmacht and the SS resulted in casualties. In the end, the number of prisoners received by the Soviet army would not be so large and they could feed a few fewer mouths.

   These three days of preparation time... are actually not for Paulus, but for the Soviet army.

"Under the circumstances that the Germans did not know that the 6th Army was going to surrender!" Shulka said: "The Don Army will still continue to attack Karachi. And in the direction of Stalingrad, because we have already negotiated with Paulus On the condition that Paulus’s 6th Army is actively preparing to surrender and the front line has entered a state of truce, this means that we can put a large amount of troops, equipment, and supplies that should have been put into Stalingrad into the Battle of Karachi!”

   "You mean... we should turn our targets to Army Group Don?" Trufanov asked.

"Why not?" Shulka replied: "Although Manstein was resourceful and the Don Army was strengthened by the artillery and the reinforcements of the new troops. However, Manstein was in a desperate situation at Stalingrad. We have to launch an attack on Karachi, and more importantly... Once the Don Army knows that Paulus led his troops to surrender, they will feel cheated!"

"That's right!" Zolotarev agreed: "They will lose the motivation to fight in an instant, because their goal is to rescue the 6th Army. If the 6th Army surrenders, they will lose the meaning of continuing to fight. .In addition, we can even let out rumors that the 6th Army reached a surrender agreement with us a few days ago, so...the Don Army was actually tricked into our encirclement by the 6th Army!"

  Trufanov couldn't help but "Oh", and said: "At that moment, the morale of the Don Army will be severely hit, and it may even collapse, and we will launch a counterattack at that time?!"

   Shulka nodded.

   This is exactly what he was considering. Zolotarev could know what he was thinking at the first time, which shows that Zolotarev has made considerable progress. He already knows how to think from the perspective of the enemy.

   There is no need for Shulka to worry about the next thing, Zolotarev will report the plan to the Supreme Command immediately.

The reason why Zolotarev reported it was because it would be faster, otherwise if Trufanov came, he would first report to the commander of the front army, and then the commander of the front army, and the degree of attention It's not the same... At this time, the political commissar system has not been abolished, and the power of the political commissar is still greater than that of the chief officer.

   As for why Stalin has not taken action against the political commissar, Shulka thinks this is correct.

  The reason is that now is the critical moment of the Battle of Stalingrad. The Soviet army and the German army are fighting tensely, and the Soviet army still has a clear advantage. If Stalin suddenly ordered the abolition of the political commissar system... I am afraid that something will happen.

Facts have proved that Zolotarev is more influential, but the plan was approved within two hours. Even when the plan was approved, the first supply train bound for the 51st Army had already left Znamensk Railway Station out.

  (end of this chapter)