"12 o'clock, 1000 meters! The Poles came up? ”

The hoarse roar of Captain No. 3 Schwartz could be heard in Meier's headphones, and it was clear that the farmer from the Black Forest was terrified.

"Attention units, do not fire, calm down, put the Poles close to fight, listen to my orders!" Armored Meyer commanded loudly.

With a few bangs, several mortar shells landed in the open space in front of the village, and instead of exploding, they released a cloud of red smoke.

"! The Poles are putting smoke on it! Schwartz complained loudly in his headphones, "I can't find my target!" ”

"Mortar fire! Mortars fire! As soon as the Mayer order was spoken, more mortar shells fell from the sky, not German mortars, but Polish heavy mortars. This time, however, it was not a smoke bomb that fell, but a high-explosive bomb, and the entire village was immediately overwhelmed by the rising smoke and fireballs.

"General, it's all smoke in front of you, and you can't see anything." The chief of staff of the 15th division of the Polish army, a lieutenant colonel in his thirties, put down his binoculars and said to Major General Pzhyakovsky.

"I don't have to look to know that the kids are playing well, just as well as they did in training." Major General Pzhyakovsky's face was slightly gloomy when he spoke, "But the place where the fight started was not good, and the time was not right!" ”

"General, you also think that the army should be withdrawn across the Vistula?" The lieutenant colonel asked.

"Evacuate the Vistula?" Major General Pzhyakovsky snorted coldly, "That's a coward!" He was silent for a moment, "If you want me to say, the battlefield should be on the territory of Germany, on the Oder, on the Elbe, not in Poland." We have been preparing for a long time, and the army has been preparing since the Soviet-Polish war. We have so many cavalry and tanks, and a strong air force...... We could have easily occupied Berlin and East Prussia before Germany re-armament. ”

"It's not too late this time, is it?" The chief of staff of the 15th Division did not participate in the First World War, and he did not know what Poland was like before the First World War. Poland has never been seen as a country far weaker than Germany and the Soviet Union.

Major General Pzhyakovsky did not answer, because he did not know whether the current Polish army could defeat Germany.

……

"Canopy ......"

Several 20mm cannon shells hit the fence on the right side of the 6-wheeled heavy armored vehicle in which Meyer was riding, breaking the wooden fence into pieces and flying everywhere, and some of the flying wooden blocks also smashed on the armored vehicle, clanging as if they had been strafed by machine guns.

"! It's a 20mm gun! "Meyer had cold sweat on his forehead, and the machine gun could not penetrate the steel plates of the Sd.Kfz.231 6-wheeled heavy armored reconnaissance vehicle. But the 20mm cannon can easily penetrate it!

According to the information obtained before the war, the TKS tanks of the Polish army only had machine guns, but I did not expect that there were now 20mm guns - in fact, only a very small number of them had 20mm guns.

"Fire! Fire! Hurry up! "The thought of the enemy's 20mm guns made Panzer Meyer himself breathless - although he had received the most rigorous training and was a fanatic of the National Socialist Workers' Party, he was in the field for the first time.

"Yes!" Gunner Gustav sitting in front of the Vaal. Schwarzenegger had long since aimed his guns at a TKS tank that had just burst out of smoke. He first pulled the trigger of the coaxial machine gun (which was used to help the 20mm gun aim, but could also be used to strafe the infantry) alongside the 20mm gun, and a string of tracer bullets hit the target, splashing a spark on the steel plate of the TKS. Gustav immediately quickly grasped the firing device of the 20mm cannon, and with a few light presses of his fingers, the entire armored vehicle trembled a few times, and several 20mm armor-piercing shells went straight to the TKS tank.

The poor little tank was like a piece of paper mud, and the thin frontal armor was easily pierced by only two "puffs" sounds, but the tank did not immediately stop advancing, but made a sharp turn, and fell into the ditch on the side of the road.

"Did I kill it? I killed it, didn't I? "Gunner Gustav. Schwarzenegger shouted excitedly, "The 20mm shell must have gotten in and killed the crew!" ”

With Gustav. Schwarzenegger's fire, all the German wheeled armored vehicles on the battlefield had their guns and machine guns roaring, and the Polish TKS tanks and soldiers who were charging seemed to have hit a rain of bullets, and they were immediately killed and wounded!

"Damn! The firepower of these German tanks was also too strong. Seeing his soldiers retreating, Major General Pzhyakovsky cursed, and just as he was about to order the mortar group to open fire to cover the retreat of the infantry, he saw a fast horse flying in front of him.

On horseback was a blue-faced Polish lieutenant, a platoon commander of the 15th Division's reconnaissance cavalry company, whose platoon was sent west of the village (bypassing the woods) to guard the road.

"Division, division, they are coming!" The second lieutenant barked loudly without stopping his horse.

"Who's coming?"

"Tanks! Tanks of the Germans! They are big, and there are a lot of them, one after the other, and they can't be counted, and these tanks also have 75mm guns! ”

The main forces of the 3rd Panzer Division are coming! At the forefront were 36 No. 4 tanks with a weight of up to 23.5 tons and a 75mm cannon with a diameter of 43 times!

……

Here they are!

The steel monsters of the Germans are coming, clad in sturdy steel armor and with sharp artillery (Hirschmann asked for a large-scale 75mm anti-tank gun from the beginning) in the first place, and countless!

By 10 o'clock on September 1, 1939. Not only did the Primorsky Army Group on the Northern Front (located between Pomerania and East Prussia in Germany) report finding a large number of German tanks tearing through their lines, but even the Army Group Lodz and Army Group Krakow on the Southern Front had the same report reaching the Polish Army General Headquarters in Warsaw - the southern edge of the Army Group Lodz defense area and the junction of Army Group Krakow were broken through by the German 16th Panzer Army, while the line of Army Group Krakow was broken through by the German 15th Panzer Army and the 22nd Panzer Army.

And when the defense line on the ground was broken by the Germans, more than 1,800 German aircraft completed the second wave of large-scale air raids!

However, contrary to pre-war propaganda, the Luftwaffe had no plans to bomb Poland's major cities indiscriminately - in Hersmann's view, this was not only a waste of bombs, but also a source of trouble! Bombed Polish cities, and later had to spend money to repair them.

Therefore, some of the He111 bombers that flew over Warsaw for the second time at 9:45 carried "paper bombs" (most of the planes still carried bombs to bomb arsenals, airfields, barracks and transportation hubs), and the "paper bombs" clearly stated Germany's requirements:

1. Abolish the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Saint-Germain, since these two treaties were unequal treaties signed by coercion of Germany by force;

2. Poland recognizes the Polish-German Border Treaty of 1918 because it is the basis of the Polish Confederation, the help of Germany to Poland, and an equal treaty;

3. The Polish Commonwealth should agree to the self-determination of the Lithuanians and Ukrainians in accordance with the Constitution;

4. Poland shall make reparations for the persecution suffered by German nationals;

5. Poland should stop persecuting Jews in its country, and Germany promises to continue to support Zionism;

6. Germany recognizes Poland's freedom of independence and is willing to protect it.

Moreover, the same "paper bombardment" took place not only in Warsaw, but also in the skies over Krakow, Lublin and Lviv, the capital of the Free State of Ukraine.

……

Almost at the same time as the second wave of the German air raids was carried out, Adolf. Hitler declared the outbreak of war in the Reichstag of the Third German Reich!

After talking on the phone with the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front, General Hersman, to confirm that the battle was going well. Germany's leader and Reich Chancellor, who walked to the reichstag rosatory in his military uniform, excitedly announced:

"The Imperial army has invaded Poland and Germany is at war! From now on, I am only a soldier of the German Empire, and I am wearing this most sacred and precious military uniform to me. I will not take off this uniform until the final victory, or I will die for my country......"

Hitler's speech provoked a wave of enthusiastic cheers from the parliamentarians. Then the Reichstag unanimously passed a resolution to declare war on Poland!

Immediately after the Reichstag passed the resolution, Hitler went to the royal residence (next door to the Reichstag) and presented a "request" to the aged and worried Kaiser Wilhelm to declare war on Poland - war had broken out and was now a mere formality.

So are the 6 peace proposals true? We really don't intend to destroy Poland? Kaiser Wilhelm asked from his throne. Having experienced a defeat and the loss of the throne, he is now very afraid of being defeated again.

"Your Majesty," said Hitler, "the six peace proposals are true and will be fulfilled in any case." First of all, we will reclaim the lost land, which means all the land ceded to Poland by the German Empire after November 1918! Secondly, we will hold referendums in Lithuania and Eastern Galicia (Austrian Ukraine, Western Ukraine), where they can choose to join Germany, join the Soviet Union, or remain independent. If they had chosen independence, then the armies of the German Empire would have left immediately and would not have provided Lithuania and Eastern Galicia with any protection from the situation. Even if the Soviet Red Army invaded! In fact, such a referendum simply gives Lithuanians and Ukrainians a choice between becoming Germans or becoming Soviets. And all Lithuanians and Ukrainians who voted for joining the USSR were sent to the USSR after Lithuania and Eastern Galicia joined Germany. (To be continued.) )