Fighters are whistling, tanks are roaring, artillery shells are rumbling......

On March 29, 1943, the Don River meandered to witness a large-scale battle again, the German armored forces attacking from afar began to surround the three Red Army groups that were desperately fleeing in the direction of Stalingrad, although the Red Army numbered as high as 200,000, but they completely lost the organized resistance and counterattack, only knew that they were rushing to Stalingrad, and everyone's thoughts were the same: escape! Flee to Stalingrad and be saved. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

"Führer, if the war goes well, I think the second phase of the 'Spring Awakening' campaign can be launched on time at midnight on April 3......" Manstein reported to Hoffmann with great ambition.

"Well done, but, before the start of the second phase, I'm going to give Stalin some more spice to tease the great tyrant."

"Tease?" Manstein seemed to have a hard time understanding the Führer's use of such frivolous words.

"Send a telegram to Berlin and tell Minister Goebbels that the time is ripe to launch the Zero Point Plan, and the truth of the matter will be announced immediately."

"Yes!" Dahlges immediately executed the order.

No one understood what this meant, but twenty minutes later, Goebbels' sonorous voice, which had been pre-recorded, sounded on the radio:

"Official announcement of the German government: ...... Recently, while repairing the bombed-out railways, highways and other works in and around Smolensk, our Wehrmacht soldiers excavated a large grave where many officers and soldiers were buried, the relevant bodies were all wearing Polish military uniforms, which were determined by the post-mortem of the international commission organized by us and confessed by the captured Russian internal affairs forces, these officers and soldiers wearing Polish military uniforms died in the spring of 1940, all of them were captured by the Red Army and killed by Stalin's orders, most of the victims were tied hand and foot and shot from the back of the head, The scene was extremely brutal and shameless...... In order to prevent the international community from taking pictures and photographs out of context, we are willing to invite the international community, especially the representatives of the allies and the Polish government-in-exile, to come and observe the scene, which has been closely protected and kept in its original state at the time of the incident......"

With non-stop broadcasts throughout Germany and Europe, the news soon reached London and Moscow.

"Mr. Chancellor, don't you have a view on the fact that the Germans have made a big news about our citizens and soldiers?" Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of Poland's government-in-exile in London, immediately called Churchill.

"Mr. Chancellor, I sympathize with the plight of the Polish people, but this is clearly a conspiracy, a German conspiracy to sow discord among the Allied Powers."

"The intentions of the Germans are insignificant, and I do not expect Hitler to be kind, but I only want to know whether the British government has its own independent position on the matter."

"The ......," Churchill muttered for a moment, "can we investigate this matter after the war is over, for now we should concentrate on dealing with the Germans." ”

"I would also like to be so calm, but my duty, my mission and the pride of being a Polish make it impossible for me to do so."

"What do you want to do now?"

"I would like to ask the International Committee of the Red Cross to investigate on the ground and to ask the Russians to submit an official report on the fate of the Polish officers who were 'exiled' in Russia." In his answer, he emphasized the word "exile".

"Well, don't be impulsive, don't express your opinion to the media, wait until I communicate with Mr. Stalin."

"Comrade Stalin, no, those bodies were found." Beria burst into Stalin's office, looking a little anxious.

"What's the panic?" Stalin narrowed his eyes and said, "Let the propaganda and diplomatic departments make a statement: the Germans are responsible for this atrocity, and Germany is now trying to blame it." ”

"Will this work?" Beria was skeptical.

"If Churchill would rather believe the Germans than us, then there is nothing to say, and as for the Polish dogs, let them go."

Churchill's attempts to calm things down had no real effect, and he received only routine, official answers from Moscow. Early the next morning, the BBC published a statement from the Polish government-in-exile: "...... We are accustomed to the lies of the German propaganda machine, and we know the hidden purpose of its propaganda. However, in view of the extensive and exhaustive reporting by the Germans on the discovery of tens of thousands of bodies of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest in Smolensk, and their assertion that they were killed by the Soviet authorities in the spring of 1940, we consider it necessary for an authoritative international body to investigate these 'mass graves' and to verify the alleged events. ”

Molotov reported the situation to Stalin with a gloomy face, who seemed very unhappy, not only because Churchill had not stopped the actions of the Polish government-in-exile, but also because the situation at the front was very bad, and Zhukov agreed in principle with the decision to meet the Germans at Stalingrad, but he was very annoyed by the fact that he was about to lose 3 armies.

"Churchill, the old anti-Bolshevik man, has made a comeback, and he should be sobered up."

"What do you want to do?"

"to sever diplomatic relations with the Poles, and to declare that in the future it will not recognize the position of the Government on behalf of the Polish people."

"Americans may be unhappy about this."

"Just because of a government-in-exile?" Stalin smiled contemptuously, "My anger against the United States has never subsided, let alone Britain, what about the good supplies?" What about equipment? If I continue to fight, I would rather cooperate with Hitler, and it is a big deal that we go to Printland and the Far East. ”

Molotov was stunned for a moment, then didn't say anything, nodded silently and went out. Shortly after his departure, Stalin summoned Vasilevsky again.

"Do you have to give the 3 armies to Manstein?"

"It's not a send, and in fact they can't get away with it." Vasilevsky understood Zhukov's whole arrangement, and although he had great doubts about this plan, he could not answer the question as Stalin wanted it to now, and the devil knows whether the word "send" would become Zhukov's crime in the future - if so, it would be fatal.

"But Comrade Rokossovsky initially reported to me that two army groups were surrounded, and the other could be retreated."

This was just his side of the story, and even if he did, he admitted that there were two armies that could not escape. As for the third one, even if we get out of the encirclement for a while, we can't guarantee that we won't be caught up by the enemy in the subsequent battles -- some things come down not to what we say, but how the truth should be. ”

Vasilevsky's second half of his remarks almost made Stalin mad on the spot, because this tone sounded too much like a sarcasm of the "Katyn Forest incident", but he knew that the other party didn't mean it, so he forcibly held back his seizures and only explained: "Comrade Konstantin wants you to go to Stalingrad to take charge of the coordination." ”

"What about himself?"

"He was going to act as an invisible commander of the front for Rokossovsky."

"But ......"

"Now that the Germans are attacking us fiercely, both militarily and politically, we must resolutely fight back." Stalin explained in a very serious tone, "You can meet whatever resources you want, whatever army you want, but one thing must be done - we must deal a hard blow to the Germans, even if we pay a little more!" ”

Vasilevs basically wanted to say that he had not agreed with Zhukov on the direction of the campaign, the objectives and plans of the campaign, and that he had other considerations for the campaign as a whole, but Stalin's next sentence quickly blocked what he wanted to say: "At such a critical moment, every senior party cadre must use the party spirit to ensure that he will devote all his strength and wisdom to the battle against the enemy, and that there are different opinions and ideas that can be discussed, but they must not go against the overall goal." ”

Vasilevsky knew that he could not go on any longer, that Comrade Stalin was clearly stimulated, that the important thing now was action, and that it was better to wait for an agreement after consultation with Zhukov as to how to move -- now it seems that Comrade Zhukov's political sensitivity was not even a little higher than his own.

"Did Stalin reply?" Churchill asked British Foreign Minister Eden, with a pipe in his mouth and a haggard face, that he had been having a hard time lately.

"In reply, he informed us and the United States that Russia was prepared to break off diplomatic relations with the Polish government-in-exile because it had listened to the fascist slander."

"What?" Churchill stood up "Ho", "Isn't this just falling into the trap of the Germans?" ”

"There's no way around it." "The Russians don't want to admit that they did it, the Poles don't believe that the Germans did it, and the public opinion and the media are staring at it, and the German radio stations are playing the news every day, even if we want to downplay it," Aiden said bitterly. ”

"What was President Roosevelt's opinion?"

He called on Stalin to maintain the unity of the allies and to fight the enemy together. But the Russians apparently did not listen to this opinion, and I am asked to say that it was in the final analysis the mutual distrust between the Russians and the Poles. ”

Churchill thought to himself: mutual distrust is a matter of course, Russia has carved up Poland three times in history together with Prussia and Austria, and after World War I, when Poland became independent, it took revenge on a weakened Russia, but soon the retaliation came - when the Polish campaign was launched, Russia stabbed Poland in the back. According to his idea, as long as the Russians admitted the matter in private, and pushed the charges to Yezhov (the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Beria's predecessor, who had been executed) or anyone else, and then the British and the United States were in the middle, the Poles would not be so stupid as to continue to work against the Russians. Unexpectedly, the wishful thinking ended up in vain.

"Take a personal telegram to Stalin in my name: even if the Polish government is stupid enough to listen to Germany's accusations, there is no time for the Allies to quarrel now, we must defeat Hitler first......"

"Does this work?"

"I can only try."

Churchill's efforts did not work, and in the early morning of April 1, TASS announced that the Soviet Union had severed diplomatic relations with the Polish government-in-exile and "did not recognize it as a representative of the Polish people." (To be continued.) )