"We need not fear defeat, even if every town in Germany is flag-planted by the enemy, as long as our unyielding determination remains, as long as our stubborn will remains, we will fight. In the villages, in the forests, in the valleys...... On German soil, brave, fight! It is our enemies who are truly to be feared, who will live day after day under the gaze of hatred and contempt, who will not find a moment of peace, who will wake up from a nightmare at any moment, who will never be able to enjoy the beauty of Germany, because this will be their burial place! Let's fight! Germans, no one can enslave you! Let's fight! Germans, hold your proud heads high! Fight! Fight relentlessly until victory......"

In Leipzig's town square, witnessed by tens of thousands of German people, Lynn issued an impassioned and proud call to battle, not only showing his courage and courage as a national leader, but also encouraging those who felt confused and pessimistic with his words and deeds. The lecture was broadcast in the form of a live broadcast, so that most of Europe could hear the German battle oath, and just more than 20 minutes after the speech, before the people in the Leipzig market square had completely dispersed, a group of Soviet bombers swooped in with great momentum, intending to eliminate the political leaders of the GDR and the most resolute resistance with air strikes, but their expectations did not come true, and Lynn escaped the bombing safely in the air raid bunker, And by deploying ahead of schedule, the Soviet Air Force suffered a little: two Luftwaffe squadrons armed with Bf-109s were ambushed north of Leipzig. Wait until the Soviet air raid group drops the bombs along with the vigilance. In the middle of the road, they brutally intercepted and killed those Soviet bombers who failed to maintain close coordination with the escort fighters, shooting down 11 Soviet planes in a short period of time, and losing only 1 fighter for their own side. For this 1-11 air battle, the German propaganda agencies used "artistic techniques" to exaggerate it as usual, so as to disgrace the Soviet Air Force, which had an advantage in overall strength.

Due to the limitations of overall strength, after the full-scale invasion of the Soviet army, the Luftwaffe mainly resisted through this nimble and clever small-scale operation, and the real battlefield was still on land. After the bold implementation of the Wandelitz annihilation battle, the main German forces continued to maneuver day and night, making it difficult for the Soviet army, which had air superiority, to grasp the real movements of the German army. Just three days after the annihilation of the 22nd Guards Tank Brigade of the Soviet Army. The vanguard of the Soviet 2nd Polish Front, which had turned from the Otbus-Dresden line to Berlin, was ambushed by the Germans in the Lukenwald area, southwest of Berlin, and in less than an hour of fighting, the Soviets lost more than 40 tanks and armored vehicles and more than 300 soldiers, and the remnants were not able to escape until a large group of fighters and attack aircraft came into support. Meanwhile. Soviet reconnaissance planes found signs of movement of large groups of German troops on bridges and roads close to the area, and Soviet radio reconnaissance units also discovered that the Germans had at least two corps headquarters radio stations working near Lukenwald.

Thinking that he had found the main force of the German army, the Soviet command quickly mobilized elite troops to rush to Lukenwald. The 7th Guards Red Banner Kiev-Berlin Tank Army, which had previously been blocked by its troops, launched an offensive deployment on the spot, the 8th Guards Red Banner Tank Corps advanced at full speed to the south of Lukenwald, the 2nd Guards Red Banner Tachinskaya Tank Army and the 4th Guards Red Banner Kantemirovka Army Tank Army, which had just occupied the Berlin area, outflanked Lukenwald West and North in a roundabout way, and the mechanized infantry in the nearby areas also advanced to the Lukenwald area at the fastest speed, and more than 500,000 elite Soviet troops acted in accordance with a clear combat deployment. It only takes them 24 hours to weave an airtight "sky net" in Lukenwald!

Finding an opportunity for revenge, the Soviet army from top to bottom was like a collective chicken blood, and the air force units continued to attack regardless of fatigue. The Red Star Sky Wing almost obscured the skies over the Lukenwald area, and the Luftwaffe made a rare succession of jet fighter sorties to intercept them. On the afternoon of 20 September and the early morning of 21 September, fierce battles broke out between the air units of the two sides in the airspace north and northwest of the city of Lukenwald. The Soviet Air Force was not afraid of this war of attrition, and transferred a number of aviation regiments from the northern and southern flanks to participate in the war, and thus firmly grasped the battlefield air supremacy in this area. Under the strong bombardment of the Soviet Air Force, the German units blocking the Soviet 7th Guards Tank Army quickly withdrew from the blocking position, and the German tanks and vehicles that had previously operated in the nearby area were also hidden in the woodland. …,

It seems to be to interfere with the deployment of Soviet troops. The Germans launched military operations against the Soviet troops in many places in Brandenburg, especially the night assaults, and even approached from the west to only 40 kilometers from the city of Berlin on the night of September 20, and the German attacks strengthened the Soviet army's determination to fight a major battle in the Luckenwald area. In order to block the retreat of the German troops, the Soviets simultaneously deployed airborne troops west of Lukenwald and in the southwest and northwest on September 21. Since 1948, when the Allies conducted a large-scale airborne operation in Eastern Europe and ended in a crushing defeat. Military experts generally recognize the vulnerability of traditional airborne forces to enemy armored counterattacks, and the experience of French paratroopers in Vietnam is the latest proof of the "paratrooper obsolescence theory". The Soviet military decision-makers did not defy the tide of history this time. Rather, they are at the forefront of military technology - not only paratroopers, but also mechanical elites who can fly tanks and planes from the sky. Dozens of new gliders carrying T-70 light tanks landed in a target area between 150 and 240 kilometers from the city of Lukenwald, and together with the paratroopers, raided 17 bridges on highways and secondary roads. The German units were clearly unprepared for the new Soviet airborne assault operation, and they repelled the Soviets in only two target areas, and with the loss of rear bridges and important transport facilities, the Germans in the Lukenwald area were in a situation where there was no way back.

At 3 p.m. on September 21, the long-awaited opportunity of the Soviet commanders finally arrived, and the Soviet troops who had completed the encirclement launched an all-out attack on the German forces in the Lukenwald area. Although the number of artillery pieces put into this battle by the Soviet army was not large, the more than 700 attack planes mobilized by the general headquarters of the front greatly enhanced the front-line support firepower, and the troops directly participating in the battle included the units under the nine armies, and the density of offensive forces reached more than 3,000 people per kilometer, which exceeded the German troops several times in most areas, and the follow-up troops of the Soviet army were still converging in the Lukenwald area, and the balance of victory was completely tilted on the side of the Soviet army.

Although the German front at Lukenwald did not collapse like a levee, as the armored units of the Soviet 4th and 8th Guards Tank Corps arrived at the key points occupied by the airborne troops, the besieged Germans were left with only two paths: surrender or destruction. In the eyes of the Soviets, the German General Staff Headquarters should have been full of defeat or was in a hurry to plan a completely uncertain battle to break the siege, but this was not the case. At the German Joint Staff in Hanover, Germany's military elite was doing everything they could to win a race against time, focusing and cautiously mobilizing every army on the war chessboard, including the 4th Army, which was pinning down the main Soviet forces in the Lukenwald area. Although this group army has the name of a regular army, and the more than 70,000 officers and men under its jurisdiction are mainly composed of first- and second-class reserve soldiers, except for the four regular army regiments, and many of them are veterans who participated in World War II, but the truly ideal soldiers have already been given signs in the early stage of the army expansion operation, and those who remain on the reserve list are either scars of war, or they are not mentally and spiritually firm, or they are lacking in intelligence. In Germany's current situation, a one-time loss of 70,000 troops would be a material and spiritual catastrophe, but it would definitely not be the end of the world. From the perspective of survival of the fittest and downsizing troops, the loss of these reservists will not greatly weaken the strength of the German troops, but will be conducive to the development of mobile operations in the future.

The German troops in the Lukenwald area had become very weak after the first few hours of holding out under wave after wave of Soviet offensives, but no one wanted to enter the notorious Soviet prisoner-of-war camps. With the hierarchical design of the preset positions, the German soldiers were able to retreat to the next line of defense in an orderly manner after the defense was broken through by the Soviets, or retreat into the woodland, where it was difficult for the Soviets to launch a full-scale pursuit, which prevented the superior Soviet troops from achieving a decisive victory before nightfall. After dark, the unusually active German radio made the Soviet command fear that the opponent would launch a Jedi counterattack at night, so the attacking units suspended the offensive and stabilized the front. The Soviet officers and men held on to the positions they had captured during the day, but the encircled German units did not use the cover of night to carry out a large-scale breakthrough operation, they were like docile little animals, they would bite only when they were pressed, and once they were not oppressed, they would honestly stay where they were - the Soviets saw through this illusion, and they waited for the real battle to come. After midnight, the besieged Germans began to break through to the west, and the Germans on the periphery also committed troops to meet them. In terms of actual performance in night battles, the Soviet army is not only not inferior to the Germans on the frontal battlefield, but also has contributed some classic examples, while the Germans are better at night operations of small units, especially the use of infrared night vision equipment to win tactical victories. At Lukenwald, Soviet troops moving to the defensive position withstood the German breakthrough with mines, flares, lights and infrared equipment, and the Soviet Airborne Forces, working in tandem with ground armored forces, also held most of the bridges. In some areas where it was too much to resist the German attack, the Soviets destroyed bridges with explosives to prevent the German troops inside and outside the encirclement from converging. (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to (.) to vote for recommendation, monthly pass, your support is my biggest motivation. )