Capítulo 218: 218
Episode 218: What will you toast for (9)
According to the Secretary General, no matter how hard our forces prepare for defense now, it will be difficult to stop the German offensive that will begin in the summer.
In that case, wouldn't it be better to make the most of our current resources, deal a blow to the German army, and then sign a peace treaty?
"What do your comrades think? Anyone who has a different opinion can speak up."
"······."
"······."
Although the Secretary General had a history of being ruined several times in the past when he called for a hasty offensive, there was no solution to the current situation, even in their opinion.
Although the circumstances were not easy to launch an offensive, it did not seem possible to stop the Germans even if they defended with all their might.
Rather, the idea of pouring in all one's strength as the Secretary General had said and delivering the final blow to the German army, who were probably distracted by victory, sounded plausible.
If you're going to die anyway, let's at least struggle and die.
Wouldn't that at least save me some respect?
"Then, Comrade Secretary General, where do you think you are aiming?"
Now that the decision has been made to go on the offensive, it remains to set operational objectives. Stalin answered.
"Of course it won't be Moscow."
"But a strong cordon has been established in the Moscow area."
The Germans were not fools either, so they judged that if the Soviet army launched a counterattack, the target would most likely be Moscow, so they formed a three-layered defense line on the outskirts of Moscow.
Recapturing Moscow would not only solve the transportation problem again, but would also have the effect of boosting the fallen morale of the military and people, but the level of difficulty was too high.
"I guess so. However, the Germans have only recently occupied Moscow, so wouldn't now be a good time to recapture Moscow? "As time passes, the defense lines on the outskirts of Moscow will become stronger, and the chances of recapturing Moscow will drop significantly."
Stalin was right. As time passes, the German army will strengthen the defense lines on the outskirts of Moscow, and by then Moscow will become an impregnable fortress that cannot be breached.
Therefore, ironically, the moment when the opportunity to recapture Moscow was highest was now, not long after Moscow had been taken.
But Voroshilov, Bundy, and Tikoshenko all just shook their heads.
"If Comrade Secretary General gives instructions, we will follow them, but the possibility of success is too small. "If we hastily attempt to recapture Moscow and lose the remaining elite troops and heavy equipment, there will be nothing left in the Red Army, and the German army will quickly rush all the way to Kuybyshev."
"Why not change your target and aim for southern Rostov and Voronezh?"
Tymoshenko believed that attempting to retake Rostov and Voronezh would have the greatest chance of success.
"We propose to recapture Rostov and Voronezh and strengthen them before the Germans launch a counteroffensive. "Even if we have to give up these two cities again, I don't think it's a very loss-making business because we can advertise to our troops and people that we have achieved a worthy victory."
Tymoshenko predicted that even if he launched a counterattack and recaptured some territory and cities, he would have to cough up at most the recaptured territory during negotiations with Germany.
Not only would the German army not begin strengthening with its pride wounded, but the Soviet army would not be able to withstand if the German army launched a proper counterattack.
"I'm just asking this while we're talking about it. "How much do you think Germany will demand in terms of reinforcement?"
"Umm..."
"They probably think they've already won the war, so I think they'll probably demand all of southern Russia and the Caucasus."
"Maybe it could be more than that."
Stalin shifted his gaze to the map and glared at the black boards and dotted lines that marked the current location of the German army.
He then moved the board himself and placed it on the names of cities in southern Russia.
'If it's southern Russia...'
Stalingrad, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Baku, Astrakhan, etc.
An area almost the size of the Balkan Peninsula had to be handed over. In a situation where the Baltic countries, Belarus, Ukraine, Leningrad and Moscow have already been lost.
"The Soviet Union of the world has already reached this point."
"yes?"
"I know what you said-"
"It's nothing. Please create a plan for a counteroffensive and bring it to me as soon as possible. "You can just leave now."
Stalin issued an order to celebrate the guests and took out vodka. And he drank it straight without even pouring it into a glass.
If only I could go back to the past. It seemed like those days were better than now, when I didn't have a single penny in hand and only had my beliefs as my weapon.
At least at that time, I only thought about changing the country. Because I didn't have to worry about protecting the country.
***
Factories in rear cities far from the front lines, such as Ufa, Perm, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, and Kazan, worked day and night.
Propaganda slogans were written on the walls of the factory in white, black, and red paint. Every drop of sweat we shed will save every drop of blood of the soldiers fighting on the front lines!
Since all men were conscripted and sent to the front, the workers were mainly children, the elderly, and women.
They worked 12 to 14 hours a day, satisfying their hunger with a rough diet of borscht, kasha, black bread, and salted herring.
And with his slender arms and small hands, he created weapons to be used by soldiers on the front lines.
"Hey, there! "Stop fooling around and get to work quickly!"
Whenever I tried to catch my breath, the screams of supervisors scarier than tigers struck my ears.
Party members were worried that the factory they were in charge of had the lowest production and that they might fall out of favor with the party.
To survive, production had to be maintained or increased steadily, and to do so, it was necessary to treat workers somewhat harshly.
This was a common occurrence in a country for workers and farmers.
"Idleness is a sin, comrades. The soldiers on the front line are fighting with all their might, but if we are just sitting here making fun, what will be the value of their sacrifice? So, let's all work hard. "If you exceed your production volume, the party will give you a reward, so you will have to work harder."
The only rewards were a can of American bison meat and a piece of chocolate per person, but the people worked hard. Even if I didn't receive a reward, I didn't want to be punished.
Although production could be maintained at a constant level through the blood and sweat of workers, there was a hidden problem.
The task of dismantling the entire factory equipment in the west and moving them to the rear to avoid the advance of the German army was successfully completed, but rebuilding the factories that had taken refuge in a new location and reorganizing the production organization was not an easy task.
And many skilled workers were conscripted as soldiers during wartime, and the unskilled workers who were brought in to fill their vacancies - mainly young people, the elderly, and women - were inferior to the skilled workers in all aspects of experience, technology, and speed.
To make matters worse, not only was there a shortage of fuel and resources, but it became an important task to produce as many tanks as possible and send them to the front as quickly as possible to catch up with the loss of weapons, especially tanks, on the front lines.
If the tank production quality standards were maintained as is, the quality standards were lowered because it was not possible to meet the quantity needed at the front, and all processes that were deemed unnecessary or 'can be omitted' were omitted.
The completed tanks were loaded onto the railroad and sent to the front without any time to check their quality.
But there was no one in the Soviet Union to point this out.
The war situation was too tight to meticulously check the quality of each tank, and in any case, the higher-ups only asked them to fill the tank in quantity on time, not the quality.
This is an important weapon right now, so there is no need to mention the soldiers who will fight on the battlefield with the weapon.
All young men throughout Russia were conscripted, and even prisoners held in gulags were put on trains and sent to the front to serve as cannon fodder for the penal units.
When even prisoners were conscripted, there was no reason for Asians from Central Asia and Siberia to be an exception.
Minorities who had been persecuted by the Soviet government were forced to take up arms for the Soviet Union that had persecuted them.
Anyone who refused to do so was mercilessly executed.
"Rejoice. Comrade Secretary General gave you the opportunity to be loyal to Mother Russia!"
"good! Go and fight the fascists! If you fight and win, if you lose, die!"
The men who were dragged out of their homes by the NKVD in the middle of the night without knowing why and were forcibly put on trains were put on military uniforms, underwent three to four weeks of training, and were immediately sent to the front.
For the Caucasus and Central Asians who became soldiers overnight and ended up in limbo, the Soviet Union and the Communist Party were not something they had to protect.
They are just enemies who forcibly separated them from their families and drove them to their deaths.
And the German propaganda broadcasts coming from the front were a temptation that was difficult to ignore.
The clever German army noticed that the Soviet army was conscripting large numbers of ethnic minorities from the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Far East and deploying them to the front lines to supplement the shortage of manpower, and prepared propaganda accordingly.
"Chechens! Why do you want to fight for the Bolsheviks who ignore and oppress your traditions?"
"Don't you know what atrocities Stalin committed in Kazakhstan? "Qurans were burned, mosques were destroyed, and you were denied even faith in your God!"
"Germany is open to everyone regardless of ethnicity or religion. Drop your weapons and surrender. And fight with us. To drive out the Bolsheviks and liberate your families and your hometown!"
The German military cleverly used the discrimination and anger that minorities had suffered so far and their dissatisfaction and anger to induce them to surrender.
The soldiers who left the camp under the cover of midnight quietly raised their hands and surrendered to the Germans.
In order to prove that their propaganda was not false and to recruit troops to maintain the wide eastern front, the German army divided the surrendered soldiers by nationality and ethnicity and created units.
In the Eastern Unit, new unit names were added to the list as the days passed.
Turkestan Legion, Crimean Legion, Georgian Legion, Armenian Legion, Azerbaijani Legion, Caucasus Muslim Legion, Ural Legion and so on.
***
January 16, 1943
New Fuhrer's Residence in Berlin, Germany
"You guys, where do you plan to mainly deploy the subordinate units of the eastern unit that have been formed?"
"We are considering deploying it on the coasts of Northern France and the Netherlands."
"Wouldn't it be better to deploy to the Eastern Front instead? Since they are friends who are united in their hatred of communists, I think they will fight harder against communists than the British. And to prepare for Operation Sea Lion, we must fill the vacant positions of divisions drawn from the Eastern Front."
Hitler, who was extremely distrustful of those who had converted from the Soviet Army, deployed them to the Western Front, Italy, and the Balkan Peninsula, far from the Eastern Front, saying that soldiers from the Eastern Unit could transfer to their original Soviet Army.
When the battle actually broke out, most members of the eastern unit fired their guns a few times before surrendering.
Shouldn't these people, who hate the Soviet Union more than anyone else and would be 100% executed by firing squad if they fall to the Soviet Union again, be deployed to the Eastern Front so they won't think nonsense and fight hard?
Hitler had no idea that simple fact. So he lost the war.
"According to information recently obtained from SD, there was another purge within the Soviet Union."
Among those purged were Molotov and Kaganovich, who were Stalin's closest associates.
We don't know why Kaganovich was purged, but we have a rough idea of Molotov. This is because it has been steadily seasoned to stimulate Stalin's suspicions.
Maxim Litvinov, who had served as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs before Molotov, was appointed to the position of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs that became vacant when Molotov was purged.
"It seems like the communists are starting to bite each other. If they do this well, they might collapse on their own before we attack."
As Goering said, the fact that there was one purge would mean that the inside of the Soviet Union was unstable.
The fact that the Soviet Union is unstable means that Stalin's authority is not as strong as before.
However, the return of Litvinov, the diplomatic liaison to the United States, to his post as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs was also not a very good thing from our perspective.
Molotov's image in foreign countries such as the United States and Britain is not very good due to the Winter War, but Litvinov has not committed anything and has been in charge of important diplomatic issues with the United States and Great Britain for a long time, so he is relatively close to the United Kingdom and the United States. It was sleeping.
Perhaps Stalin had hired him to help America enter the war.
"Mr. President."
Heydrich, with a face as long as a cucumber and a hooked nose, entered the conference room and saluted.
"I have something to report about the investigation into the Katyn Forest near Smolensk."
"Ah, yes. "What happened?"
"Just as His Excellency the President said, a body was found in the forest. "The number is at least several thousand."
"also. "I knew it would happen."
As part of my efforts to prevent America from entering the war, I ordered Heydrich's SD to investigate the Katyn Forest near Smolensk.
And today, the results came out.
The corpses of Polish officers were buried in the Katyn Forest.
As many as thousands of people.
In history, Stalin instructed the NKVD to massacre captured Polish officers, non-commissioned officers, and intellectuals.
It was obvious that the Polish intellectual class would become an obstacle to the Soviet Union's rule over Poland, so the plan was to kill them all to eliminate any repercussions.
The number of Polish prisoners who were massacred was about 22,000.
Of these, 4,400 were executed in Katyn Forest and buried there.
"How did you know about this, Mr. President?"
Heydrich now seemed to feel not only surprise but also fear.
"How many times do I have to tell you this? I have my own source of information. You just have to do what I tell you to do. Anyway, is that all you see?"
"yes? "Ah, we found it, but it's winter so the ground is frozen and we don't know exactly how many bodies are buried, so it's expected to take quite some time to dig them all out."
"Well, it might be okay in spring or summer when the ground is soft, but it's winter now, so there's nothing we can do. It doesn't matter though. No matter how long it takes, the important thing is that we have solid evidence that the Soviets massacred the poor Polish prisoners of war."
It is said that a significant number of those who actively supported U.S. intervention in the European War were Polish-Americans.
They never viewed the Soviet Union favorably, but since Germany invaded Poland first and still effectively controls Poland, they maintained a more hostile attitude toward Germany than toward the Soviet Union.
But what if it is revealed by Germany that the Soviet Union massacred Polish prisoners of war?
Those who argue that Germany should be punished by intervening on the European front will lose their power, and the voices of anti-war activists will become stronger.
The Soviet Union's position will become even more awkward than it is now.
"Good job, Heydrich. It's okay to go out. Oh, go get Dr. Goebbels. "When it comes to propaganda, isn't that friend the only one without talent?"
"All right. Heil Hitler!"
Estado de energía semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Piedra de
Poder