Chapter 946: Angry Stalin

Stalingrad was a thing of the past. The name had finally become history before the torrent of German tanks. Those who hope for immortality by naming a city may never achieve their goal—though Washington, perhaps, is a beautiful exception.

In the end, the city was obsequiously renamed Saint Rudolph by the army. It would continue to exist as a German city, and on the third day after its capture, it began to serve Germany. Through the confessions of high-ranking prisoners, caches of grain, fuel, and ammunition buried beneath the city were unearthed. Batch after batch of supplies was a feast for the eyes of the occupying army and a boon for the Ukrainian troops who followed.

At the same time, Zhukov was still desperately leading his troops in a fierce southward assault. Soviet forces had at one point retaken a portion of the German-occupied territory in northern Voronezh Oblast and had relieved the threat to the city of Voronezh itself.

The Soviet 1st Guards Tank Army and the 3rd Guards Tank Army launched a pincer attack on the German 1st Panzer Corps. The two sides clashed in a salient in what would become the most brutal tank battle in human history. In a narrow area, the number of tanks from both sides once exceeded 1,000. The entire battlefield was littered with the wrecks of tanks and the bodies of soldiers.

If Stalingrad was hell for infantry, then this battle, born in the region south of Kursk, could be called the graveyard of armored forces. The tragedy was that, as the vanguard of both sides, these participating units were, without exception, the most precious elites of both the Soviet and German armies.

Zhukov himself no longer knew how to handle the situation. The city he had advanced south to reinforce had been lost not long ago. His hundreds of thousands of troops were left in the open field, trading attrition with the Germans—this was perhaps one of the German army’s favorite ways to fight. The two sides piled up tanks on the plain and then lost them at a ratio of one to several.

It should be known that the Soviet Union had spent half a year just to scrape together these few thousand tanks that could stand up to the Germans. If they were all to be lost now in the region south of Kursk, then Zhukov wouldn’t even have to go back to Stalin to beg for forgiveness.

But to have him turn back now seemed not to be the right thing to do either. The idea of a southward advance had been his, and the strategy of prioritizing the defense of Stalingrad had also been drawn up by him—even the general defending Stalingrad had been promoted by him. All of this seemed to be too unfavorable for him. Thinking of these things gave Zhukov a splitting headache.

It should be known that at all times, there is a relationship of distrust, more or less, between a general and a leader. This relationship of distrust might, due to the similarity of their origins, approach zero, but this relationship of distrust did exist, and it affected the harmony between the general and the leader.

For example, in another timeline, Hitler and his army commanders had an extreme distrust of each other. This distrust, as the war progressed and the defeats mounted, finally erupted. The Valkyrie plan was the final product of this relationship of distrust.

Akado had come from the German military and also had a deep and unshakable foundation in it. But one could still see, from the intricate command and coordination relationship between the General Staff and the High Command, the distrust that Field Marshal von Brauchitsch and other old-guard army generals had for the new Führer.

However, this distrust could be covered up or compensated for by a series of victories. Hitler, who had won one victory after another, had a good relationship with his generals, but once they were defeated, they began to blame each other. So Akado still had a good relationship with Brauchitsch and the others, because Akado had not yet lost.

This also made it not difficult to understand why Stalin was becoming more and more distrustful of his generals. At least Khrushchev, Voroshilov, and Rokossovsky, whom he had selected, had all betrayed him. So he was now also beginning to not trust Zhukov and the generals under him very much.

In the Kremlin in Moscow, Stalin held a document in his hand, silent before a group of people. Through the gaps between his fingers, one could roughly see the contents of the document. It was a letter of appointment, a promotion document that Stalin had prepared to send to Rokossovsky.

Originally, as long as Rokossovsky had died in battle at Stalingrad, then this document would have been signed and approved by Stalin and then sent out to the entire army as an obituary. This was an attitude, an attitude that showed Stalin respected the generals who had fought for him to the very end. But before he had even had time to grieve for the fall of Stalingrad, he had heard the news of Rokossovsky’s surrender.

Trust? Where had the most basic trust between people gone? Stalin really wanted to ask the subordinates in front of him, whose faces were becoming more and more disrespectful. These were all “reliable comrades” who had been through the period of the Great Purge. But in the current situation, Stalin could no longer guarantee how long these people would remain reliable.

“Announce to the outside world that Rokossovsky is the number one traitor of the Soviet Union! Have all his family, friends, relatives, and neighbors hanged immediately!” Stalin’s voice broke the silence. “He should have died in battle! He should have died in battle there! He swore to share the fate of Stalingrad! He swore it!”

No one answered Stalin. To stand up and express one’s opinion at a time like this was clearly not a wise thing to do. What Stalin needed was to vent, to curse at a group of idiotic subordinates. After everyone had been sprayed with his spittle, they would go back to their respective homes and prepare their excuses to flee the city.

Did they really think everyone was willing to contribute their lives for their motherland? Did they really think everyone resolutely supported Comrade Stalin forever? Did they really think that in the current situation, anyone would be willing to go and frame Zhukov and then take over this hot potato?

This could be clearly seen from the several changes of command at the front. In the beginning, who went to the front was a matter of competition. Those who could go to the front were all people whom Stalin trusted completely, such as Khrushchev and Voroshilov. After the two of them were finished, everyone knew that the Germans were “tough characters” who were not easy to deal with, so everyone began to take the route of recommendation, collectively recommending the more capable Zhukov to take the bullet for everyone. Now that it was Zhukov’s turn to almost be unable to hold on, it was a case of whoever’s turn it was was unlucky. To recommend oneself at a time like this would be purely a case of having a hole in one’s head.

What a joke! To seize power was to reap more benefits, to get promoted and to stand out, to build one’s political capital more comfortably in a good environment. In the current situation, if anyone still coveted the chair under Zhukov’s ass, then it could no longer be called insane, but simply foolish to the extreme! Even if Stalin wanted to replace Zhukov, this group of people would probably be crying and begging Stalin to take back his order.

Of course, after Stalin had ordered the execution of everyone related to Rokossovsky, he slowly opened his mouth and raised the issue of his distrust of the frontline generals. “Although Yezhov had an ambition he shouldn’t have, there was one thing he said that was right. These generals are all untamable wolves. They will never be of one mind with me!”

Hearing Stalin’s evaluation, these officials and generals who had been bowing their heads lowered them even further. A time like this was often when a storm was about to begin, so everyone did their best to make themselves seem less conspicuous, so that this great thunderbolt would strike someone else’s head first.

“I am considering replacing Zhukov, having him return from the front to report on his duties. Do you have any good candidates to replace him?” Stalin asked, seeing that no one was speaking, a greater hint of resentment in his voice. He played with his pipe with one hand and caressed Rokossovsky’s marshal’s commission with the other. In the end, with a sharp gaze, he swept over everyone’s heads and sighed, giving up the idea of forcing these people to speak.

He himself also knew that the current war situation was extremely unfavorable for the Soviet Union. Even a fool could see that at a time like this, no matter who went to the front, they could not do better than Zhukov. At a time like this, even if he were to call Zhukov back and have him cut into a thousand pieces, in the end, Stalin himself would not escape this fate and would still walk the same old path as Zhukov. It was just a matter of one after the other. To do so was meaningless.

The sound of a sigh echoed in the empty conference room, and the hearts of everyone, which had been hanging in their throats, finally settled with this sigh. After all, Stalin had compromised and had given up the idea of recalling Zhukov. Then the rotten situation at the front might be able to be dragged on for a while longer, buying more opportunities for everyone to retreat to the more distant rear.

The curtain had already fallen on Stalingrad. That place was now called Saint Rudolph. This city represented the military achievements of the German Führer in his campaigns in all four directions, and also represented the immense prestige of this great Führer in Germany. And this renaming was a blatant “slap in the face” to the leader of another country.

In this highest conference room of the Soviet Union, there were very few people who were still considering the future of this country. All everyone was thinking about was to find a reason as soon as possible to go to Chelyabinsk, or some other place further away. In any case, to wait for death in Moscow was not a good choice.

“Don’t even think about running! Go back and think carefully about how to defend Moscow!” As if he had seen through everyone’s thoughts, the words that Stalin finally spoke sent a chill down the spine of every high-ranking Soviet official present. “I know you are all planning to leave Moscow, but… without my order, no one can leave! Violators will be charged with treason!”

“Yes…” everyone answered weakly. The meeting was dismissed. How to stop the German advance remained an unsolved problem.

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