Chapter 153 Chapter 25 "The Underworld Follows Him" ​​(4)

1942 came, but the military situation in Germany remained almost unchanged.The Eastern Front was still at a standstill, and Rommel's desert offensive was not yet fully ready.The reports I heard, apart from saying that the Japanese army was victorious, were not very joyful.Hitler was elated by the Japanese victory, but frustrated by his polite allies' refusal to fight the war as he wished.Ribbentrop, through Ambassador Oshima, forced Japan to shift its offensive to India, but to no avail.Hitler invited Oshima to the "wolf's lair" and repeated this request, but it was also unsuccessful.He said that the German Army was about to invade the Caucasus, and once that oil-producing region was captured, the road to Persia would be wide open.At that time, Germany and Japan can launch a large-scale pincer offensive to destroy the British Far East Army.As tempting as it was, Japan turned down the opportunity.They are already considering the possibility of negotiating with the West.The Emperor of Japan summoned Prime Minister Tojo into the palace and instructed him to "not lose any opportunity to end the war." Tojo summoned the German ambassador, General Eugen Ott, and suggested to him that Germany and Japan should secretly contact the Allies; Long-distance bombers came, and he was willing to fly to Berlin as the emperor's personal representative.The Führer's answer was polite but lukewarm; he didn't want to risk Tojo's death in a German plane crash.

Hitler was determined to defeat Russia without Japanese aid.So, he marched into the Caucasus as planned.He surprised his army generals by emphasizing the importance of the region in writing.If they don't take the oil fields of Maykop and Grozny, he said, "I'm going to have to end this war." Due to the torrential spring rains, this ambitious campaign, code-named "Brow", was delayed for several weeks, and it was not launched by Marshal Bock until June 28. 6 Hungarian divisions and 17 German divisions went straight to Kursk. Forty-eight hours later, the powerful Sixth Army, consisting of 18 divisions, launched an attack due south.The Soviets made a mistake: they took very few of their tanks into battle.Therefore, in less than 48 hours, the two German armies met and surrounded a large number of Soviet troops.Ahead was the Don River and the strategically important city of Voronezh, but Bock was not in a hurry to take advantage of the victory, and only captured the city on July 6.However, Hitler at this time was already tired of Bock's slow tactics and dismissed him from his post forever.

While Bock was heading west home to retire, complaining of ill-treatment, Hitler moved his headquarters deep into Ukraine and encamped in the woods a few miles northeast of Vinnytsia, which he named Wolf's Lair himself.This is a very bleak place. The so-called headquarters actually only has a few wooden houses without even cover.There are no mountains, no trees, just an open space that stretches as far as the eye can see. In July, the sky was cloudless, the sun was shining, and it was so hot that people couldn't breathe.This clearly affected Hitler, and made the arguments and quarrels - which culminated in a few weeks - all the more intense.

Perhaps the heat also contributed to a crucial mistake.Hitler made an unrealistic decision: to launch a large-scale attack on the industrial city of Stalingrad on the Volga River while continuing to march into the Caucasus.Halder had publicly complained that it was impossible to capture both Stalingrad and the Caucasus at the same time, and suggested concentrating on capturing the former.But Hitler remained convinced that the Russians were "finished." Deep anxiety arose in the Soviet high command.Stalin replaced the commanders of the Stalingrad front and prepared the city for the siege.In Moscow and Leningrad, workers have begun building three lines of defense around the city.Battalions of militias and workers' militia were sent to the west to support the retreating Red Army.

The debate in the "wolf's lair" also intensified.After a stormy quarrel, Hitler said to his close aide: "If I listen to Halder again, I will become a pacifist myself!" At the Fuhrer's Day meeting held on July 30 , Jodl solemnly said that the fate of the Caucasus will be decided by Stalingrad, and the Fourth Panzer Army, which was driven to the Caucasus earlier, must be reassigned to Stalingrad.Hitler flew into a rage—thus turning the argument into an attack—but then agreed to it.Had this tank force not been diverted south, Stalingrad might have fallen to the Germans.By this time, however, the Soviet Union had assembled sufficient forces on the Volga front to delay (not break) any new attack.The success or failure of major events is often related to these seemingly insignificant decisions.If Stalingrad had been surrounded in midsummer, the entire front of the Soviet army might have fallen apart in winter, and it was out of control.This is another example of Hitler's risky division of troops.Before that, he first insisted on attacking Leningrad and Ukraine at the same time, and then he belatedly proposed to march on Moscow, and all this was accompanied by a political and ideological struggle while pursuing the personal goal of exterminating the Jews, and This further consumes energy.In the present dilemma - fight Stalingrad or the Caucasus? ——Similarly, he insisted on capturing both, which again took the risk of losing both places.This situation, which the ancient Greeks called "overconfidence," that is, excessive pride, will eventually ruin all conquerors.

If, out of ambition, Hitler was uncomfortable with putting his army in jeopardy, that was not so obvious.A week later, he calmly assured a visitor from Italy that both Stalingrad and the Caucasus could be won.His optimism seems well-founded.Militarily, the overall situation is good.In North Africa, Rommel unexpectedly won, captured Tobruk, an important British defense line, and then moved towards Alamein, which is only 65 miles away from Alexandria.Then came the news of an even bigger victory: the victory at Midway.Hitler originally believed that this was a Japanese victory because he believed that the Japanese communiqués were more accurate than the American ones.This time, however, it was his allies who lied.Not only did Japan lose four motherships and the essence of its naval air force, but because of this battle, the situation in the Pacific War has changed.Then there was news that the Americans had just made a massive landing on the strategically important Guadalcanal Island, located in the heart of Japan's defense circle.This proved how badly Japan had failed.

It was a terrible setback, and it came so suddenly. No wonder the debate was even more intense in the Wolf's Lair. On August 24, Halder demanded that a heavily damaged Soviet force be withdrawn to shorten the front.The request sparked a heated debate.Hitler yelled that his chief of the army's general staff had given exactly the same advice - retreat! "I hope my commanders are as tough as my warriors!" Usually, Halder can swallow his anger.Today, he refuted it.Thousands of heroic Germans, he said, lay down on the battlefield simply because their commanders were prevented from making rational decisions.Hitler couldn't help but be taken aback.He looked directly at Halder and said gruffly: "General Halder, how dare you use this language in front of me! Do you think you can teach me what the soldiers on the front line are thinking? Front line What do you know about the situation at the front line? Where were you during the First World War? You still put on an air, saying that I don’t understand the situation at the front. I can’t stand it! went outside.Clearly, Halder's days at the High Command were numbered.

In late August, fighting reached the northern outskirts of Stalingrad.The indiscriminate bombing of the German army had already set the city on fire; the Red Army's communication system was destroyed, causing the city to be temporarily isolated from the outside world.However, Hitler could not win immediately.He felt that the commanders at the front had lied to him and that he had been deceived by those at headquarters.Suspicious of both, and slowly becoming pathological, he listened little to advice, and heeded none of criticism.The summer heat smothered him; he often made hasty decisions in anger and retort.He was particularly dissatisfied with Marshal Liszt, who succeeded Bock.When Liszt left the venue of the meeting on August 31, Hitler cursed the field marshal.Lister's days were also numbered.