In the evening, Hoffmann, accompanied by Keitel, arrived at the headquarters of Army Group Center in Smolensk, where he was warmly welcomed by Moder and others, who, in addition to the important generals of the command, Weyx, Jodel, Zeitzler, and others had already taken up their positions here. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The position of Smolensk is very close to the front line, especially after the voluntary abandonment of the Rzhev salient in the autumn of last year, which is only about 200 kilometers from the front line, that is, the impact distance of the tank group for 5-6 days. After Weix's Eastern Army Group was formed, the headquarters was originally set up in Kiev, because this battle had to cooperate with Army Group Center, and he also brought the headquarters to Smolensk, so the men and horses of the two headquarters poured into the two headquarters at once, and the scene seemed to be a bit crowded.

Hoffman didn't care about this, after the closure of the Vinnytsia base camp in Ukraine, the status and importance of the headquarters of the various army groups have been improved, Zeitzler's own command has been placed in Minsk, but once an important battle is carried out, he will basically pounce on the location of the headquarters of the main army group, and the most place he has gone to in the past six months or so is the headquarters of Army Group South in Rostov-on-Don.

It is a shame to say that Hoffmann, as commander-in-chief of the army, has not visited Army Group Center for a long time, and even Moder himself, after he was promoted to commander of Army Group Center, Hoffman has not seen him. However, this did not affect the image of the Führer in the minds of the people, and everyone felt that the current situation was more relaxed, that political resistance and unrealistic demands could be reduced, and that the entire operational command system would be smoother.

Looking at the crowd of eager Moder, Hoffmann was satisfied, he liked this energetic new generation, and he didn't like the warm water of the Junkers officers - he always felt that there was always a kind of estrangement in the old-school officers like Weickers and Rundstead, but the old marshals had the advantages of the old marshals, they were more effective in coordinating all aspects of relations, and their deep qualifications were also very respected. So Hoffmann put Rundstead on the basis of the position of the Army on the Western Front, made Field Marshal Weicks the commander of Army Group East, which consisted of a large number of troops from the Eastern countries, and then let Moder take Weicks's original position.

In fact, there was great resistance to the appointment of Moder to the rank of commander of Army Group Center - an appointment far beyond the real time in history, when Moder was very young in seniority - in 1938 he was still a colonel! In the crowd, he is completely small, not to mention that he can't be compared with the generals in the army like Rundstead and Weix, compared to Guderian, the qualifications of generals such as Kleist and Hoult are completely unreadable, and even he was promoted to the commander of the 9th Army very late, and there were more than 15 generals who were qualified to take over this group army in front of Moder, but in the end it was Moder who came out on top, and as a result, he became the commander of the army group after more than half a year.

If you don't know what a rocket promotion is, you can see it by looking at Moder's promotion qualifications, and if you insist on finding a comparable general in the army, it is only Zeitzler, who was promoted to major general later than Modell.

However, Hoffman was not swayed by this opinion, and he explained the reason when he issued the appointment: "Now the goal of Army Group Center is not to attack, but to defend!" I think that given the courage, determination and track record shown by General Modell, I think he can take on the defensive duty. ”

There is no doubt about this, because the German Wehrmacht has always been the dominant idea is to attack, blitzkrieg, armored clusters and other tactics are born for the offensive, in terms of offensive capability, a group of people rushed to be the first, Guderian, Hort, Kleist are all famous blitzkrieg vanguard; But in terms of outstanding defense capabilities, apart from Gotthard Heinrich, there seems to be only Moder, and the former has always been very inactive towards the party, coupled with undisguised religious beliefs, belongs to the controlled use of the population. Even if Hoffmann himself had no prejudices against Heinrich, the Big Four from him down all had ideas, and if he had to choose between the two, the party would overwhelmingly support Moder, and even Zeitzler himself thought that Moder was more suitable.

In this way, the position of commander of Moder was stabilized. However, military seniority has always been very important, and since Modell's position was to be kept, Hoffman made adjustments elsewhere: due to the concentration of troops on the Southern Front, the Hult cluster and the Kleist cluster were unified under the control of Army Group South in terms of command, but the level was set at the level of Army Group, which was equivalent to the promotion of Hult and Kleist in disguise; Although Guderian and Rommel only held the title of commander of the army group, they were also designated as army group commanders because they both received the marshal's scepter and the strategic direction they were responsible for was regarded as being in charge of the general staff and directly responsible to the general staff; Also belonging to this rank were the commander of the Army of the Western Front, Field Marshal Rundstead, and the commander-in-chief of the reserve army, Field Marshal Blomburg.

Under the commander-in-chief of the army, the number of powerful commanders with the rank equivalent to that of the group army group commander has reached a total of 8 people, plus Zeitzler, which basically constitutes the core team. Speaking of which, there are special features in the establishment and personnel system of the army -- the navy and air force all have first, second, and third deputy commanders, but the army has no deputy commander. It is not that there can be no deputy commander, but the General Staff has a high status in the army tradition, and if Hoffmann himself held the post of commander-in-chief of the army, in the Brauchitsch era, the chief of the General Staff, Halder, could even stand up to the commander-in-chief.

In view of Zeitzler's relatively young qualifications, Hoffmann has been thinking about the establishment of an army deputy commander, and the ideal object in his mind is Manstein, believing that only he is worthy of the position of "commander of commanders", and Manstein is still relatively sleek, he belongs to the old Junker family, but because the new generation of civilians has a good relationship, similar to Guderian's thorn behavior can not be done. But there was one thing that bothered Hoffmann - Manstein's appetite was so great that it seemed to him to be up to the standard of great success.

During the truce of the Spring Awakening Campaign, Manstein, in addition to asking Army Group Center to launch a diversionary offensive in the direction of Moscow to cooperate with the operation on the southern front, also proposed to Hoffman a Central Asian plan through Jodl -- that is, to have Rommel's Middle East Army Group and most of the Kleist Group use a total of about 500,000 troops to land on the northern shore of the Caspian Sea and sweep the Soviet hinterland from the rear -- not from east to west, but from west to east, that is, to pounce on the Ural Mountains through Kazakhstan in later generations. Forced Stalin to surrender by flanking and cutting off the rear.

The strategic reasons are, of course, very obvious: after breaking through the defense on the northern shore of the Caspian Sea, the Russian hinterland behind is empty, and the troops are very limited, as long as the supplies can keep up, the German army will be swept very easily; Although the Caspian Sea Passage was historically an important transportation route for Lend-Lease supplies on the southern route, Hoffmann did not believe that Germany was currently capable of transporting enough supplies for 500,000 men for the front line through the Caspian Sea - this was a real 500,000 mechanized troops, not 30,000 or 50,000, and if it was lost, Germany would be doomed. Of course, Manstein was not unaware of this, but he pinned his hopes on the magical Speer, who almost spurted out a mouthful of old blood.

Hoffman has thought several times that if he has the supply capacity of the Americans, then he will not hesitate to approve this plan, but the problem is that although Germany's logistics capability has made great progress compared with history, the gap is still quite large compared to the United States, and Germany still has a series of strategic directions in Africa, South America, and the Azores to take into account, so it is impossible to put all the treasures on it. Of course, everyone is happy, but if it doesn't, the other directions will collapse.

The most painful thing is that he still can't tell whether this is Manstein's real idea or the big plan that the other party deliberately put forward to cater to him, and even Jodel and Keitel are dumbfounded, and for a moment they can't tell the pros and cons. Fortunately, there is no rush in this matter, and it can be planned slowly and in the long run.

In addition to the uncertainty of this grand plan, the readjustment of the command and personnel levels has also reached a moment when it is urgent to readjust. With Rommel's Middle East Army completing the mission of the Middle East campaign and joining the southern front, and the end of the African campaign approaching, Hoffman found himself facing a rethinking of the strategic direction and layout, and had to readjust the deployment of troops, the level of command, and the structure.

But how to make adjustments, he has not yet fully figured out - whether it will be a general attack on the Soviet Union or a general attack on the British? This determined the redeployment of 1 million troops and most strategic materials. Even the simplest personnel issues were enough of a headache - a balance between ability and seniority on the one hand, and a balance on the other, and finally he decided to put these long-term thoughts on hold for the time being and devote himself to the battle of the castle.

Although the name is the same as in history, the connotation of the two battles is clearly different, and the goal this time is to assault Moscow.

Regarding the choice of specific campaign targets, Moder, on behalf of Army Group Center, proposed two directions, one for Rzhev-Vyazma, and the other for Tula. The former was to attack Moscow from the Western Front, intending to repeat the routine of the Typhoon campaign, while the latter was to attack Moscow from the southern front with Orel as the starting point, which was a routine that tried to detour from the southern front in the Typhoon campaign. It should be said that it is not a new thing.

After arguing for a long time, everyone agreed on one point: the Battle of the Castle was not the main direction of attack, and the target was not Moscow for the time being - Hoffman believed that it was not yet time to launch the second Typhoon campaign, this time with a clear goal, to attract heavy Red Army troops by simulating the Typhoon campaign, and to create an opportunity for the third phase of the Spring Awakening Campaign. (To be continued.) )