Chapter 260
When I woke up again, it was completely dark. Through the closed glass window, flickering firelight shone in.
Yuri climbed out of bed, walked to the window and looked out. He saw that a bonfire had been lit on the side of the street downstairs, next to two parked tanks. A dozen Soviet soldiers in tank uniforms were sitting around the bonfire, eating and talking about something.
I raised my arm and looked at the watch on my wrist. It was already seven o'clock in the evening. I slept a little too long.
"Arseni?!" Turning around, Yuri shouted.
"Here!" As his shout fell, Arseny's voice came from outside the door. Then, the bedroom door was pushed open and Arseny walked in.
"Go get me some water, I'll wash up, and we'll leave immediately," Yuri ordered succinctly.
Arseni took the order and went out. After a while, he brought in some toiletries.
After quickly washing up, Yuri put his clothes in order and walked out of the door. He had to get to the Poznan front as soon as possible. For the current war situation, the battle of Poznan was secondary. The key task was to break through the German Oder River defense line.
Coming out of the bedroom, Yuri went downstairs and saw a family quietly guarding the stairs. He hesitated for a moment, but finally stopped and called the timid head of the family over.
After asking Arseni for a pen, Yuri wrote a note in the small notebook he carried with him. He handed the note to the owner of the household and said, "After we leave, if anyone comes to cause trouble, give them this. If they want proof, tell them to call the number below."
After saying this, he put on his military cap and walked down the stairs. This Polish family certainly couldn't understand what he said, but it didn't matter, the guards would naturally translate it for them.
Yuri thought that his abilities were limited, and he couldn't take care of all the things that he couldn't stand, but it was not a big problem for him to help one or two families, especially those who provided him with help, to the best of his ability.
Unlike ordinary Soviet officers, he did not have to worry about trouble from the Military Committee or Comrade Beria's secret police. Now, as long as Comrade Stalin maintained his trust in him, there would be no problem.
Coming out of the small building where they were resting temporarily, Yuri got into his jeep. Arseni blew a whistle outside the car, and the soldiers who were originally gathered around the campfire quickly stood up and got into their respective tanks. This wave of troops that temporarily stayed in the small town began to march.
It is still nearly 200 kilometers from the small town to the Poznan front line. Although the Soviet army has advanced to the Oder River line, the vast area east of Poznan can actually still be regarded as a war zone, because a large number of defeated German stragglers are still hiding in those vast jungles. In addition, the guerrillas of the Polish National Army are frequently active.
In order to ensure Yuri's safety, the front command specially arranged four tanks to accompany him, and a platoon of cavalry served as guards.
The team traveled all night, from 7:15 until nearly midnight, when they finally arrived at the southern suburbs of Poznan. An engineering regiment belonging to the 9th Guards Army was still stranded here, while the main force of the Soviet army had advanced to the Obra River line and was attacking Shcherbań.
This news surprised Yuri very much, because the Obra River is in Germany, which is outside the Polish border, and Shcherbin is a small border town in Germany.
In order to avoid mistakes, Yuri confirmed the news again and again, and even contacted the headquarters of the 9th Guards Army. After receiving a personal report from the army commander Chuikov, Yuri almost immediately passed the news to Moscow.
That same evening, the sound of cannon salutes rang out again in Moscow, and the loudspeakers on the streets began a half-hour broadcast, despite the fact that it was still late at night, conveying the news that the heroic Soviet Red Army had entered Germany to every Muscovite.
Chuikov wanted the honor of being the first Soviet army group to enter the German mainland. Otherwise, he would not have risked offending Zhukov and asked to join the First Belarusian Front. Now, he finally got what he wanted, even though his troops had only entered the German mainland for less than 10 kilometers.
In the past few days, almost every army group on the entire Soviet front line has been fighting like crazy, including the 1st Guards Tank Army, the 33rd and 59th Armies, the 9th Assault Army, etc. Almost every unit is advancing rapidly. In the past, it was a good job to destroy the German troops in the encirclement, but in the past week or so, no army group commander was willing to take on this task. They all set their sights on the West and Germany, and wanted to be the first Soviet commander to set foot on German soil.
To put it bluntly, it was under the control of this kind of motivation that the entire First Belorussian Front was able to advance 500 kilometers westward across Poland in just over a week, with the troops advancing an average of more than 70 kilometers a day and night.
Of course, such high-speed marching and rapid fighting also brought huge casualties to the Soviet army. Yuri was keeping an account in his mind. Since the end of the Belarusian Campaign, the First Belarusian Front alone has lost nearly 400,000 troops. If it were not for the continuous influx of troops from the rear, the entire front would have been crippled long ago. Let alone attacking, it would have been very good to be able to defend against the German counterattack.
The Soviet army's siege of Poznan was like an iron barrel. Even at night, there were constant sounds of gunfire from the direction of the city, and the entire sky was reflected in bright red. It was the Soviet troops launching large-scale artillery bombardments on the city.
Due to the sufficient logistical supplies, especially the abundance of guns and ammunition, the Soviet commanders have become more and more mature and humane. Before the formal offensive is launched, they often launch large-scale artillery bombardments on the German defensive positions, in an attempt to destroy the German defense facilities and kill the German defense forces to the greatest extent before the offensive corps launches a strong attack, thereby reducing their own troop losses.
Without staying in Poznan for too long, at three o'clock in the morning, Yuri set out again, preparing to rush to the Obra River line to the headquarters of the 9th Guards Army.
…
At dawn, the quietly flowing Obra River was covered in white by the rising river fog. There was silence on both sides of the river, and only the sound of rushing water could be heard on the foamy river surface.
Nearing five o'clock, when it was almost dawn, behind the woods on the east bank of the Obra River, countless flares suddenly rose into the air on a front nearly two kilometers long, illuminating the entire section of the river.
Looking east from the riverbank, you can see flashes of fire suddenly appearing behind the jungle within sight, lighting up the night sky as if a forest fire had broken out.
After a few more breaths, I felt the ground suddenly tremble, followed by a rumbling sound and the sharp roar unique to the Katyusha rocket launcher.
On the west bank of the river, the originally silent German defensive positions seemed to have turned into a sea of fire in an instant. When the huge explosion sounded, the entire river surface was shaking. Even though they were hundreds of meters away, the trees in the jungle on the east bank of the river were also trembling.
The high-density artillery bombardment lasted for nearly half an hour before dense crowds of people appeared on the east bank of the river. Amid the deafening sound of "Ura", countless Soviet soldiers rushed down the river bank, put a large number of kayaks and rafts into the water, and began to force their way to the other side of the river.
The artillery bombardment that had been raging on the German river defense positions began to slowly advance into the depth of the defense. The Soviet artillery had now mastered the technique of slow-moving barrage cover, and their coordination was extremely tacit.
The German defense on the Obra River was very weak. The remnants of the 9th Army retreated in a panic from the area west of Warsaw, suffering countless losses along the way. They finally retreated to the west of the Obra River. Less than a day later, the Soviet pursuit troops had reached the river. They had no time to build and consolidate the defense line. The worst thing was that their troops were seriously insufficient.
When the Soviet army forced its way across the river, there was only sporadic sniping fire from the German defensive positions. Despite suffering certain casualties, the Soviet army successfully crossed the Obra River in just 40 minutes and established several small-scale landing sites on the opposite bank of the river.
By seven o'clock in the morning, the pontoon troops had built seven pontoon bridges on the river. The following 9th Guards Tank Army swarmed through these pontoon bridges and rushed into the German defensive positions, like a big nail, wedged into the depth of the German defense .
The next task of the 9th Guards Tank Army was to advance quickly towards the Oder River and try to force a crossing of the river while moving. Once this task was accomplished, the Soviet offensive front would have reached the city of Berlin.
Of course, this task was not so easy to accomplish, because on the Oder River line, the German army had built a new line of defense in Küstrin, with the aim of blocking the Soviet offensive at this position.
Hitler planned to adopt the same tactics that the Soviet army had adopted in the Battle of Moscow, dragging the Soviet army into a fierce battle in Küstrin, and then, when winter came, launching a full-scale counterattack, fighting a beautiful Berlin counterattack and completely reversing the situation on the Eastern Front.
Of course, this was just Hitler's idea. Not to mention the Soviet army, even the German army's own senior commanders did not think that this plan had any chance of success.
