As expected, Manstein received a warning from the 6th Army.

The warning was issued by Lieutenant General Strecker, commander of the 11th Infantry Corps.

Lieutenant General Strecker was previously Manstein's subordinate and was transferred to the commander of the 11th Infantry Corps before the Battle of Stalingrad.

Because of this relationship, Manstein had more frequent contact with Strekel, because this allowed him to know more and more real information about the situation of the 6th Army.

Less than five minutes after Paulus announced his surrender in a speech to the entire army, Strecker sent the telegram to Manstein's headquarters.

"Your Majesty Marshal!" Strekel said in the telegram: "That bastard Paulus has announced his surrender, and he also said another message... The reason why the Don Army Group was able to reach Karachi was because the Russians allowed

You did this! What should I do? Stop him?!"

Manstein, who was holding this telegram, was so surprised that he couldn't recover for a long time. He never thought that one day he would fall into the enemy's trap, although he was forced to do so.

Then he immediately ordered to the adjutant: "Stop the attack, stop the attack immediately!"

Manstein looked at the map and then ordered: "Send a warning to the 75th Infantry Division that they are likely to be attacked by the enemy soon. At the same time, order the 91st Infantry Division to reinforce immediately!"

"Yes, Your Excellency Marshal!"

After thinking about it, Manstein asked the communications soldier to call Strekel back: "You don't need to do anything, Lieutenant General, Paulus is right, you should obey his order and surrender! There is nothing you can do, all

Your resistance is in vain and unnecessary!"

Strecker was silent for a long time before he called back: "Yes, Your Majesty Marshal! It's a pity that I couldn't fight with you on the front line at the last moment!"

"You should feel lucky!" Manstein replied: "Because for you, everything is over!"

Then Manstein no longer had time to pay attention to Strekel, because he had to nervously command the rhythmic retreat of the troops together with his staff.

This can be said to be Shulka's mistake, or to be precise, Zolotarev's mistake.

Shulka felt that with Bergmann controlling Paulus in the 6th Army, Paulus was inseparable, so there was no need to tell Paulus about "lubing the enemy deeper".

If analyzed objectively, the 6th Army at this time was destined to have only one option: surrender.

So what if they had already reached Karachi because of the Don Army Group and their morale was temporarily boosted?

What if Paulus changed his mind about surrendering because of the hope of breaking out?

Even if the 6th Army and the Don Army attack Karachi, what will happen?

It was already too late for the 6th Army. The Soviet encirclement had been stabilized, and as long as the Soviet army launched an attack behind Manstein, the temporarily gained morale of the German army would immediately disappear. Paulus and Manstein

Because you will also "suddenly realize", "wake up from a dream" and then "correct your evil ways and return to the right path".

Therefore, Shurka was never worried about the situation with the 6th Army from the beginning.

But Zolotarev was not like that, he had been worried.

No wonder he was worried that the big piece of meat of the 6th Army was too tempting. He, including the Supreme Command, did not hope that the surrender of the 6th Army would cause any problems, even just a little bit.

Therefore, when Zolotarev reported the plan to the Supreme Command, the Supreme Command and Zolotarev decided to reveal the "lure the enemy deep" plan to Paulus through Bergman.

The reason is very simple. If Paulus knew that Manstein's Don Army had stepped into a trap, he would know that the 6th Army had no possibility of breaking out. The fact that the 6th Army had no possibility of breaking out meant that Paulus would not change his original intention, so

There are just a lot less variables.

At the same time, the Supreme Command also cleverly decided to hide it from Shulka, which meant that Shulka was unaware of the entire process.

Of course, Akadiyevich didn't know either... This might also be said to be a credit-grabbing attempt by the Political Department, but there were problems with this credit-grabbing.

As a result, the German troops on the flanks of Army Group Don suddenly became nervous.

"What's going on?" After receiving the report, Shulka rushed to the trench and looked across with a telescope. The Germans were already preparing for battle on the trench.

"Intelligence has been leaked!" Akadiyevich said bitterly: "Obviously, the enemy already knows that we are going to launch an attack! There are traitors among us!"

Shulka looked at the time and saw that there were still two hours left before the attack time.

After thinking about it for a while, Shulka roughly guessed what was going on.

"No, not a traitor!" Shulka shook his head.

"What do you mean?" Akadiyevich was a little confused.

"I'm not sure yet!" Shulka replied.

Then he turned around and went back to the headquarters to make a phone call to the Army Group Headquarters.

"Comrade Trufanov!" Shulka pretended not to know anything and said: "The Germans are preparing for battle. They seem to know something!"

"Yes, Comrade Shulka!" Trufanov replied. He hesitated for a moment and then said: "Let Comrade Zolotarev explain it to you!"

After a while, Zolotarev's embarrassed voice came over the phone: "It's an order from the Supreme Command, Comrade Shulka! We revealed the plan to Paulus, and Paulus leaked the information!"

Shulka was not surprised at all, so he acted calmly.

But Akadiyevich on the side couldn't help it. He grabbed the microphone from Shulka and cursed: "You bastards, how could you do this and leak the plan to the enemy... This is

Do you understand treason? You will pay for this mistake..."

Shulka patted Akadiyevich on the shoulder, signaling him to calm down.

"It's meaningless to say this now!" Shulka reminded: "We should find a way to remedy it!"

This is the difference between professional soldiers and intelligence workers.

As a soldier, Shulka knows what is most important on the battlefield, what should be done and what should not be done, what is meaningful and what is just a waste of precious time.

As Akadiyevich was an intelligence agent, his first reaction was to hold people accountable.

But Akadiyevich also knew that Shulka was right. After nodding, he gritted his teeth and said on the phone: "This account will not be settled like this!"

Then he returned the microphone to Shulka.

Shulka knew that what Arkadyevich said was just angry words. If it was an order from the Supreme Command... no one could hold him accountable.

But Shulka didn't care about this. He picked up the phone and asked: "What should we do now, Comrade Zolotarev?"

"An early attack?" Zolotarev asked.
Chapter completed!