"Führer, the situation on the Eastern Front battlefield is very serious. Army Group Center must retreat to the rear, otherwise the entire army may be in danger of being annihilated."

Chief of Staff Keitel said to Mustache anxiously.

Although the Third Reich dispatched Army Group Northern to attack the Baltic coast, it wanted to coordinate the southern battlefield.

However, this move had little effect, and the situation on the southern battlefield continued to deteriorate day by day.

The time has come to December 1943. Snowstorms in Eastern Europe will become very common, and the frontline troops of the Third Reich are facing severe challenges and tests.

Imperial Marshal Göring thought for a moment and then spoke:

"Under the current situation, we can only abandon the area east of the Dnieper River and stick to Belarus and Kiev."

"After the cold winter, our army can regain the initiative on the battlefield, and it is very possible to make another breakthrough."

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"We cannot let the severe cold swallow up the empire's more than 2 million troops, otherwise the Eastern Front will be completely out of control."

Now is not the time to be stubborn. Everyone is beginning to express their opinions and believe that retreat is the last option.

The Dnieper River is a natural line of defense. After retreating to the west of the Dnieper River, the army will be absolutely safe and the enemy will not be able to defeat it no matter what.

The muscles on the mustache's cheeks twitched involuntarily, and he stared at the situation map of the Eastern Front battlefield with wide eyes.

In the eyes of Mustache, the Red Soviets are always the biggest threat. He once determined to destroy the Red Empire, or at least drive its regime east of the Ural Mountains to the coldest and cruelest natural environment.

The Third Reich digested all the resources of Europe and then conquered the world.

Such a strategic plan is perfect and ideal.

But in the process of implementation, it was full of difficulties. First of all, I encountered two pig teammates.

One gave up Europe's weakness, while the other provoked the enemy it should not have provoked.

The situation used to be very good, but now the east and west fronts are extremely corrupt.

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The Third Reich has lost the possibility of global domination, and is now somewhat unable to even consolidate its occupied areas.

An important reason why Mustache was unable to make up his mind to withdraw his troops was that he could not accept the fact that the Third Reich had transitioned from unprecedented strength to decline.

If you retreat 100 kilometers today, it will probably be 500 kilometers or 1,000 kilometers tomorrow. By then, the haze of war will be shrouded in the mainland.

But the situation forced us to make a decision despite the agony in our hearts.

The mustache smoothed the oily hair on his forehead and said with great reluctance:

"Okay, I agree to Marshal Busch and Marshal Manstein's request to retreat, but I ask them to bring out their troops completely."

After saying this, he seemed to have lost all his strength and collapsed in his seat.

Reich Marshal Göring and Chief of Staff Keitel looked at each other and shook their heads helplessly.

The order from the Imperial High Command was quickly conveyed to the headquarters of Army Group Center in Kiev.

The moment he saw the retreat telegram, Marshal Busch, commander-in-chief of the Army Group, almost burst into tears.

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To be honest, the veteran Marshal Busch was already a little afraid of the winter in the Soviet Union.

Every winter, thousands of imperial soldiers were attrited for various reasons, and Marshal Busch had some psychological shadow.

It is absolutely impossible to launch an attack in winter, and we can only use every means to defend.

After you can't hold on, you can only retreat and trade space for time.

After the excitement, Marshal Busch began to order his staff to start formulating a retreat plan.

The width of the front from north to south exceeds 1,000 kilometers, and the total number of troops to be retreated exceeds 2.5 million.

A detailed evacuation plan must be formulated to clearly define the sequence of evacuation. It cannot be like a fight between children, which would bring disaster to these 2.5 million people.

On the afternoon of December 1, the headquarters of Army Group Center began to prepare a retreat plan.

At this time, the temperature outside reached minus 10 degrees and was still falling.

The temperature at night can even reach minus 15 degrees.

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It was already so cold in early December. It would have been unimaginable if it had been later.

Only Marshal Kluge, commander of the 4th Army, and Marshal Model, commander of the 9th Army, knew that the headquarters was formulating a withdrawal plan.

All armies and divisions were still struggling to hold on to their positions, resisting the severe cold and blocking the Red Army's overwhelming attack.

..

The weather is getting colder day by day, but the mood of Marshal Zhukov, the supreme commander of the campaign to liberate Ukraine, is getting better day by day.

Although the various armies of the Red Army could only advance a dozen or even a few kilometers per day, Zhukov felt that the German resistance was beginning to fail.

If the blizzard weather had not also affected the troops' mobility, the Red Army would have reached the Dnieper River.

Taking into account the current weather conditions and the comparison of the enemy's and ours' strengths, the political officers at the headquarters even shouted the slogan of reaching the Dnieper River before Christmas.

After hearing this, Zhukov just smiled slightly and did not think they were exaggerating.

The First Ukrainian Front and the reorganized Second Ukrainian Front entered the battlefield one after another, gaining the initiative on the battlefields in Kursk and Bryansk.

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The Supreme National Defense Council organized the reserve front troops and the people to fully support the front line. The troops have sufficient logistics supplies and the military morale is high.

More than two thousand tanks entered the battlefield, creating an armor-crushing force.

The tank group army and the cavalry unit are making bold and roundabout attempts to encircle the enemy's main force on the east side of Kiev.

in the south.

The Central Xia Western Expeditionary Army began to deploy a general attack on Kharkov on the evening of November 30.

The 100,000 Young Guards, the 18th Group Army, the 19th Group Army, and the 20th Group Army are the general offensive forces, with a total strength of more than 500,000.

The 21st Army, 22nd Army, 23rd Army, 30th and 31st Armored Regiment and other units are responsible for cutting off the enemy's rear route and supporting the 1st Ukrainian Front in the north.

The general offensive to liberate Kharkov officially started on the morning of December 2.

Hundreds of thousands of Central Xia troops, with the cooperation of thousands of tanks and hundreds of aircraft, gathered like Khakhakov from all directions.

Drawing on the experience of previous blocked attacks, after the launch of this general offensive, each direction was the main attack direction. The armored group army was supported by armed helicopters and was not afraid of the enemy's armored grenadiers.

"After the liberation of Kharkov, the army pushed the front to the Dnieper River and then repaired it for a period of time."

Fighter planes roared past Jiangdong's head, and red battle flags covered the snowy field.

Artillery shells pierced the sky one after another and fell into the German positions in Kharkov from all directions.

Kharkov is the central eye of the storm, and all firepower is converging on this city.

Huge air waves hovered over and around the city of Khakov, demonstrating the majestic power of mankind in the era of thermal weapon warfare.

Jiang Dong's face was calm, and there wasn't even a trace of emotion in his eyes.

In his opinion, the attack methods in front of him were still very unmodern and not something to be proud of.

Wu Zhan and Li Zhaoying looked a little excited. After hearing Jiang Dong's words, Wu Zhan said:

"The Commander-in-Chief is probably worried about the excessive attrition of the troops. We have also considered this issue, and it is true that we will only advance to the Dnieper River."

"The Dnieper River defense line is not easy to break through. We will wait until next spring to make plans."

Jiang Dong stopped talking and looked at the magnificent battlefield with his telescope.

In addition to the North Donlets River, there are many small rivers and a large number of swamps around Kharkov, but they are all frozen at the moment, and there are fewer obstacles on the way forward for the tanks of the Armored Group Army.

Manstein and Guderian had only two ways to break through. The first was to head west along the railway to Kiev;

The second is to retreat north, also along the railway, to Sumy and Konotop behind Kursk.

Join the main force of Army Group Center to get rid of the pursuit of the Central Xia army.

However, both directions have been blocked by the Western Expeditionary Army.

Wu Zhan and Li Zhaoying deployed three blocking lines in the direction of their breakout.

The first two lines of defense are responsible for the 21st Army and the 22nd Army, and the 30th and 31st Armored Groups are deployed on the latter line of defense.

Even if Manstein and Guderian could break through the first and second lines of infantry defense, they would not be able to break through the third iron wall composed of armor.

The offensive to persuade them to surrender had already begun, and the person in charge was Marshal Paulus, the former commander of the German 6th Army.

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Chapter completed!