Chapter 702: On Stage
In the busy command post of the German Army’s Eastern Front Army Group E, Commander List was sketching something on a map with his staff. His defensive line was located within Belarus on the overall German-Soviet front, the closest in a straight line to Minsk.
A staff officer placed several blurry aerial photographs on the tabletop, then pointed to one and explained to General List, “General, this is a comparison of two aerial photos of the same location. The Soviets have clearly built a large amount of camouflage in this area. As for what they are trying to hide, there is no definite analysis yet.”
Another officer specializing in camouflage pointed to an enlarged section of the photo and said with a frown, “A camouflage net of this size, if we were operating it, would probably be for a large piece of equipment like a tank or an airplane. It could also be a truck or a howitzer. In short, if it’s not a deceptive camouflage, these expanded areas should all be for large equipment.”
Although they knew the Soviets were preparing for a massive winter offensive, the German army did not know the specific direction of their attack. Therefore, each army group was working hard to analyze the possibility of a Soviet offensive in their own sector. After all, this was related to whether the first phase of the defensive battle would be successful.
And in List’s defense sector, the Soviets’ performance was relatively calm. But the German army controlled the air superiority on the Eastern Front, so the frequently dispatched reconnaissance planes had finally discovered some suspicious places.
For example, around some forests, some vegetation areas that had not been there before had unknowingly appeared. These were clearly camouflage set up by the Soviets. As for what was inside, it was not something the Germans could clearly distinguish. It could be tanks or infantry barracks, or it could even be nothing at all, just fake camouflage to confuse the enemy.
“Our heavy artillery cannot reach this area. If we use bombers, the risk would be relatively high,” a staff officer said, feeling that this was a difficult problem, one that was not very suitable for either the army or the air force to handle. “We don’t have many large-caliber artillery pieces, and their range is limited. Most of these places are more than 20 kilometers deep, so using artillery is obviously not realistic. The air force has reported back that they cannot confirm the situation there and suspect there is enemy ground anti-aircraft fire.”
On the Eastern Front, German Air Force fighters already ruled the skies, but the Soviets were not just sitting and waiting to be killed. They used the method of decoys and pre-set anti-aircraft gun positions to lure German pilots into attacking, in order to ambush German dive bombers and light bombers and achieve their counter-attack objective.
So, even though the German Air Force could come and go as it pleased over the Soviet Union, the air force was still cautious about sending planes to bomb. Moreover, to use only the comparison of two photos as evidence to request the air force to bomb a forest of no strategic value was obviously something that any air force commander would have to consider carefully.
List remained silent. In fact, as a high-ranking German military commander, the instinct buried deep in his bones made him feel that the targets marked on these comparison photos exuded a strange danger, which made it difficult for him to move his scrutinizing gaze away. He felt that these abnormalities were definitely not so simple, but he lacked effective evidence to support his view.
The entire German-Soviet defense line was now in the shape of an ‘S’. The upper part was the large part of Belarus controlled by the Soviets, and the lower part was the large part of Ukraine that Germany had cut off. In fact, Germany’s offensive plan was the exact opposite of the Soviets’. The German plan of action was to encircle the Soviet forces near Minsk and annihilate all the Soviet troops in the vicinity.
This was determined by the geographical environment of the occupied areas of both sides. Because if you took a map of the actual control lines of both sides, the first thought of most generals would be to straighten this line that was twisted into an ‘S’ shape. It could be due to obsessive-compulsive disorder, but more often it was because attacking from the flank was always considered easier than a frontal assault.
The principle was similar to attacking a person with a knife. If you strike a person’s stomach with a knife, you might only leave a bloody wound. But if you strike a protruding part, you might cut off their arm. In terms of results, cutting off an arm looks more shocking.
However, the German High Command had drawn up an overall plan that went against the grain. Unlike the Soviet focus on a north-to-south attack, the German overall strategy adopted a tactic of advancing on both wings simultaneously. In the north, Army Group A, led by Field Marshal von Rundstedt, would be the main attacker, while in the south, Army Group G, led by General Guderian, would be the main attacker, jointly completing the entire “New Barbarossa” offensive plan.
But before the offensive began, a great deal depended on whether the defense and counter-attacks of the five army groups on the defense line, including Kluge, List, Model, Weichs, and Manstein’s newly formed Army Group M at the southernmost end, could be carried out smoothly.
Just like on a football field, the forwards who storm the enemy’s fortress are certainly dazzling, but a team’s victory depends more on the stable performance of the midfield and defense. Those steady defenders or midfielders may not become household names, but they are absolutely crucial to a team.
Generals like Guderian and Rommel were more awe-inspiring, but it was impossible for all the generals in a country’s army to be so brilliant. Most soldiers were as simple and unadorned as steel, but they were irreplaceable in their posts. It could be said that it was precisely because of them that the myth of an empire’s invincibility was truly built.
Among the German generals on the Eastern Front, apart from Kluge, who stood at the position of an army group commander by relying on his absolute loyalty and obedience to the Führer, the other generals were all truly capable field experts carefully selected by Akado.
Among them was the steady and conventional army group commander Weichs. This field expert was adept at encirclement and annihilation battles and was an outstanding front-line commander. He had performed very well in the encirclement operations in Poland, and the German infantry under his command was renowned in the Wehrmacht for being elite. He was a general with no obvious weaknesses.
Another general, Model, was known as the “Imperial Firewall” for his skill in commanding defensive operations. In Poland, he had led his troops to defend their positions to the death, annihilating a large number of Soviet effective forces with local counter-attacks, and ultimately buying time for the main force to encircle the Soviet main body. Thus, he became known to the world. If Guderian and Rommel were the twin jewels of the empire on the offense, then Model was the steady general who was as unshakable as a mountain on the defense.
However, this general who was best at defense was not at the position where the Soviets were about to launch their general offensive. Instead, he was leading his army group near Kiev, waiting for a possible large-scale Soviet offensive. This was also the reason why Akado had insisted on this deployment, because he hoped that after the counter-attack began, the two army groups of Guderian and Manstein could have a solid rear.
General List, like Weichs, was a general with no obvious weaknesses. When the German army invaded France, he was already a major German general in Poland on the Eastern Front. To dare to place him on the Eastern Front to deal with a possible Soviet offensive was in itself an affirmation for List. He had completed his mission outstandingly, constructing the prototype of that pillbox-style defense line and laying a solid foundation for the victory in the first phase of the later German-Soviet war.
Now he was in charge of the defense of the area south of Minsk. For this, he had meticulously constructed three defense lines. If viewed from the sky, these lines looked a bit like a tic-tac-toe grid. In the vertical direction, there were also trench designs for transferring troops, and the blank areas of the grid were filled with mines and obstacles, forming a good flank cover.
At the intersection of the trenches, he had reinforced the machine gun bunkers and anti-tank guns in order to eliminate as many of the attacking Soviet forces’ effective strength as possible. The entire position was actually an improvement and development of the pillbox-style defense line. To put it bluntly, it was a bit like a simple World War I position, with a greater investment than a typical World War II defense line, and with more permanent fortifications.
This was also a distinct feature of the first phase of Germany’s “New Barbarossa Plan,” which was to use permanent fortifications to get through the dangerous initial period, to buy time for the German armored forces, and to protect the forward offensive positions. As long as they could get through the initial dangerous period, then the starting point for the German armored forces would be extended a great deal forward compared to another timeline. In this way, Moscow, which had not been reached in another timeline, would become a prize within the grasp of the German armored forces.
“Report!” Just as List was thinking about whether to ask the air force to conduct another reconnaissance of these suspicious locations, an officer pushed open the door of the operational command post and walked up to General List. “Heil Führer! A message from General Model. The Soviets have begun a large-scale artillery bombardment of his forward positions. The battle has begun!”
“Attacking the Kiev front first? The Soviets are a bit interesting this time…” List walked to the map, squinted at the position of Kiev on the huge Eastern Front map, and tapped the area near Brovary on the outskirts of Kiev with his hand, muttering to himself, “Is it a feint? Or does this fellow Zhukov really want to smash through the Kiev front?”
After thinking for about ten seconds, he turned around, looked at the air force liaison officer in the corner of the command post, and ordered, “Order the air force reconnaissance units directly under my army group to take off immediately and reconnoiter the suspicious locations on the photos! If that camouflage is not a false target, then they should be moving now! I have a feeling! This time, when the curtain rises, it will be my turn to go on stage!”
Published: 2025-09-20T03:06:54.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2026-03-01T19:19:51.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c702-on-139307837
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