On the banks of the Moika River, on the south side of St. Isaac's Square, in a green-roofed post office building, Captain Moltke panted and ran to the third floor of the building, facing north, to check the Soviet defense on St. Isaac's Square with a telescope. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

After a full day of fighting from seven o'clock in the morning to five o'clock in the evening, Captain Moltke and his men managed to advance a kilometer along Voznesensky Avenue to the south of St. Isaac's Square.

St. Isaac's Square, adjacent to the bridge, is covered with barbed wire, forming an S-shaped corridor that can only be passed by infantry. In front of the barbed wire, steel bars are inserted diagonally into the ground as a "horse rejection" to block the advance of the tank.

Behind the barbed wire, machine-gun positions made of sandbags and anti-aircraft artillery positions crisscrossed each other, looking like a maze from a distance.

On the east and west sides of the square, adjacent to the river, are neatly arranged residential buildings.

There is no doubt that these residential buildings have by this time turned into a point of fire for the Soviet troops.

Taking St. Isaac's Square is tantamount to opening the door to the final goal, the Hermitage.

It's just that now it seems that this gate is not so easy to kick open, and if you don't get it right, you will hurt your foot.

"The bridge we see is the Blue Bridge, which is 97 meters wide, the widest of the city's 342 bridges."

Major Falkingham's voice came from behind Captain Moltke.

"What are you going to do?" Major Falkingham asked.

"First with heavy firepower and then with infantry infiltration, I think we can use that small dock."

Captain Moltke said, pointing to a small pier in the northwest corner of the Blue Bridge.

"Report to me immediately if you need any heavy weapons, and I will use the rest time to send them to you, you have the time to prepare tonight and tomorrow, and launch an attack the morning after tomorrow."

"The morning after tomorrow? Why wait so long? Captain Moltke asked, puzzled.

"I don't know, it may be that which troops on both flanks of our division are moving too slowly to keep up with the pace of our advance, so we have to stop and wait for them to catch up."

Captain Moltke remembered that there was not only one division of the 36th Panzergrenadier Division that had invaded the city, but that several divisions had to ensure that they had to pull the front together and advance in unison, so as not to be attacked by Soviet flank fire alone.

"Well, hopefully they will be able to catch up with us as soon as possible, if we leave too much time for the Russians, it will only make them move more troops to strengthen the defenses."

Captain Moltke and Major Falkingham did not know that they were waiting for not friendly troops inside the city, but troops outside Leningrad, on the Neva River.

To the north of the town of Kolpino, the Police Division and the 6th Panzer Division crossed the river successively, swept the towns of Bor, Vsevo and Sunzhsk in the east of Leningrad along the way, and then turned to the west and launched an attack on the right bank of the Leningrad city on the Neva River, so that the offensive of the Soviet troops in the city expanded from one direction in the south to three directions, east and north.

Captain Moltke knew nothing about the progress of the German troops outside the city, and all his energy was devoted to the violent clearing of Soviet troops in St. Isaac's Square.

For two nights and a day, mortar shells flew over the Blue Bridge without stopping and landed on the positions of the Soviet troops on St. Isaac's Square.

On the south side of the Blue Bridge, Grizzly Bear Assault Guns and No. 3 Assault Guns drove up to the river, raining shells on buildings on both sides of the bridge.

The windows on the riverside of these buildings, along with the bricks that blocked them, were blasted open by shells.

The 150 mm high-explosive shells of the Grizzly assault guns were even more unbearable for a century, or even two centuries, and the fragile masonry walls were blasted into huge gaps, which could no longer hinder the entry of German infantry.

At four o'clock in the morning of October 8, before dawn, a group of black shadows poured out from the southeast corner of the Blue Bridge, and these black shadows rushed to the river and lowered the rubber boat.

The rubber boat was full of grenadiers, turned the bow of the boat, and turned into the tunnel of the Blue Bridge, which was nearly 100 meters long and provided the best cover for the grenadiers, so that they could cross the Blue River with confidence and boldness.

In the hole in the bridge, on the bow of the dinghy, Captain Moltke turned on his flashlight to guide the direction of the dinghy.

When the rubber boat broke out of the bridge hole, it was already in the northwest corner of the Blue Bridge.

The dinghy docked on the pier, and the grenadiers leaped up and rushed along the pier to the shore, across the narrow riverfront road, through the crumbling walls and into the building.

Flames soon erupted from inside the building, the explosion of a grenade and the flames of the muzzle of a gun.

The shouts of soldiers on both sides echoed inside the building.

An hour and a half later, a figure appeared on the south side of the building, turned on the flashlight, and drew a circle around the dark buildings on the south bank.

More grenadiers rushed out of their hiding places and rushed to the river bank with rubber boats on their shoulders.

On the deck of the Blue Bridge, sappers crawled forward, using the cover of night to approach the obstacles set up by the Soviets, waving sapper pliers, cutting the barbed wire that was in the way, and sandbags were also moved to both sides of the bridge.

Rumbling explosions followed, and sappers used explosives to destroy the ground in order to dismantle the most difficult anti-tank horses.

The attacking force is like a sophisticated war machine, running at high speed in an orderly manner.

Captain Moltke's troops opened fire on St. Isaac's Square against the windows of the building, and cooperated with mortars to suppress the movement of Soviet troops on the square and cover the movement of the sappers on the bridge deck.

The offensive is going well, and before dark today, it should be possible to reach the final destination, the Hermitage.

Captain Moltke had just made a positive prediction of the progress of the battle, and in the dim light, in St. Isaac's Square, two behemoths drove out of a small street on the east side of the square, one after the other.

The cannonballs landed on the square, and the glow of the fire hit the two behemoths from time to time, causing the figures of the two big guys to flicker.

The huge bodies of these two big guys carry them squarely, like turrets in the shape of public toilets.

The stout and seemingly powerful 152mm cannon slowly turned, pointing at the riverside building controlled by Captain Moltke and his men.

“KV-2······”

"Mobile public toilets are coming······

Inside the building, the sight of the grenadiers of the two KV-2 heavy tanks made everyone shudder.

"Transfer, hurry up."

Captain Moltke shouted and ran to the exit window, fleeing down the corridor away from the square.

Behind him, in a room near the side of the square, grenadiers fled the room in a swarm with weapons on their shoulders.

The two KV-2 heavy tanks opened fire one after another, and in the rumbling explosion, smoke and gunpowder rose into the sky, enveloping the building for a long time, unwilling to disperse.

Two more high-explosive bombs fell into the smoke and dust, and four high-explosive bombs completely destroyed the side of the building facing the square, leaving only broken walls and scattered pieces of masonry.

Two KV-2s destroyed the German-controlled riverside building, then turned their guns to the wide deck of the Blue Bridge, dispersing the German sappers with the power of high-explosive shells.

In the ruins of the building, Captain Moltke hid behind the broken wall of the building, and saw the sappers on the Blue Bridge, driven by the KV-2, flee to the south bank, and the destruction of the barricades was stopped.

"Put on the smoke grenades, tell the mortars, let them fire the smoke grenades, and call the howitzers to support us."

Captain Moltke shouted as he grabbed a herald by the collar.

At the call of Captain Moltke, the smoke grenade quickly fell into the square, and in the dim light, the white smoke rolled and spread in all directions, like an oversized marshmallow, enveloping all the people and objects in the square.

Grizzly assault guns, as well as two Wild Bee 150mm self-propelled howitzers that arrived in a hurry, stopped on the south bank of the Blue Bridge and frantically fired high-explosive shells at St. Isaac's Square.

The air wave of the explosion of the high-explosive bomb dispersed the smoke, revealing the figures of two KV-2s.

Captain Moltke took the opportunity to fire flares from his flare gun, not into the sky, but at the KV-2 in the square.

In the bright light of the flares, the KV-2's massive body was invisible and exposed to the muzzle of the 150-mm howitzer.

Under the heavy bombardment of high-explosive bombs, sandbags were thrown into the air, the barbed wire was broken and twisted into a ball, and the seemingly indestructible KV-2 was first broken by its tracks, turned into a live target and stopped in place, and then was continuously hit by high-explosive bombs and turned into a steel coffin.

At 8:20 a.m., Captain Moltke stood by the wreckage of a KV-2 tank, watched the Grizzly Assault Gun and the No. 3 assault gun pass by, and rubbed his swollen right cheek blankly.

In a morning of fighting, he and his men, with the cooperation of friendly forces, succeeded in seizing St. Isaac's Square and opening the gates to the Winter Palace, but the whole company was sharply reduced from 78 to 42 men, and there were still two buildings to be captured, the Admiralty Building and the Winter Palace.

The Hermitage was to be used as a symbol of victory, to be left to fly the German flag, but the Admiralty building did not serve such a purpose.

Captain Moltke immediately decided to use the advantage of heavy firepower to destroy the Admiralty building from a long distance to ensure that he had enough strength to attack the Winter Palace.

After consulting with Major Falkingham, two more Wild Bee self-propelled howitzers were reinforced to Captain Moltke's unit.

Four Wild Bee howitzers, a Grizzly assault gun, and a No. 3 assault gun, under the cover and guidance of the grenadiers, aimed at the towering Admiralty building north of St. Isaac's Square.

Stuka dive bombers flew into battle and smashed bombs into the Admiralty building.

Also as an ancient building, the Navy Building is also a masonry structure, and its resistance to riots cannot be compared with that of reinforced concrete buildings.

After nearly an hour of heavy bombardment, the Admiralty building was gone, leaving only a pile of broken walls and a hill of broken bricks.

Captain Moltke was reinforced by three battalions and nine companies, and his strength increased to eighty-one.

With just one charge, Captain Moltke led his men into the Admiralty building, then turned his aim to the Hermitage to the east, across the street.

The Hermitage is located on the Hermitage Square, bordering the Neva River to the north, and on the south side of the square stands the Alexander Column, which was built to commemorate the victory against the Napoleonic War in 1812.

Captain Moltke's gaze lingered on Alexander's Column for a few seconds, then turned to the Hermitage, which was close in front of him.

The Hermitage is not high, the exposed part of the ground is only three floors, and it is more than 20 meters high, and the whole presents three colors: light green, white and local tyrant gold.

The windows on the first floor, like most of the buildings Captain Moltke had seen in Leningrad, were sealed with bricks and looked impermeable.

Wild Bee self-propelled howitzers and Grizzly assault guns first concentrated their firepower to cover the Soviet troops on the Hermitage Square.

Assault Gun No. 3, under the command of Captain Moltke, shelled the sealed windows.

The mortars aimed at the roof of the Winter Palace, suppressing the possible presence of Soviet troops on the roof.

At ten o'clock in the morning, the Grizzly assault gun under Captain Moltke fired three shots in a row, and bombarded the wall of the southwest corner of the Winter Palace, and the walls of the three-story building shattered like pieces of paper, revealing the passage leading to the interior of the Winter Palace.

"Toot ······" Captain Moltke blew the whistle for the attack, and the grenadiers jumped out of the rubble where they were hiding, ran through the wide streets, and rushed through the broken walls into the Winter Palace.

Two hours later, near 12 o'clock in the afternoon, at the flagpole on the roof above the main entrance of the Winter Palace, Captain Moltke looked at an officer of the NKVD unit who was covered in blood and barely able to stand firm by holding on to the flagpole.

After the two men looked at each other silently for a few seconds, Captain Moltke gave up his intention to surrender and raised his assault rifle and pointed it at the enemy.

Shots rang out, and the bodies of the NKVD officers fell to the ground with a bang.

A minute later, the sickle and axe flag fluttering on the flagpole slid to the ground, and the flaming red swastika flag was raised.