Chapter 19: Escaping Assassination

  "The Bald Eagle" special plane rushed towards the clouds amidst scattered light snow. Several German and Soviet fighter planes were tangled together in front of him to the left. The Fuehrer was surrounded by a protective cordon of fighter planes, and Lide had no doubt that if any Soviet planes dared to attack him without regard for their own lives, these young men would ram their planes into the enemy, even sacrificing their own young lives to shield him.

  However, despite having such brave soldiers, Li De still felt inexplicably annoyed and remained silent after boarding the plane. After Miss Rudvika brought coffee and sat down beside him with a smile, trying to cheer him up, her sweet smile had lost its charm. The Führer closed his eyes to rest, ignoring her, so she could only sit in the back with a sullen expression.

  The Soviet army launched a full-scale counterattack, and along the way, the Soviet planes were very active. Li De knew that the Allied forces had long cracked the German Enigma code, and the Soviet spy group "Red Orchestra" was active in the German military economy, protecting their effective means of frequent changes in plans, making it impossible for the enemy to follow any rules, which had been proven several times before.

  By 1941, Hitler had survived several assassination attempts, two of which are relatively well known:

  On November 9, 1938, Hitler came to Munich to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the "Beer Hall Putsch". Among the thousands of people welcoming him was a Swiss named Maurice Bavaud, who had a 6.5mm caliber pistol hidden in his coat pocket. He believed that Hitler was the incarnation of the devil and planned to kill this Nazi madman on this day.

  The second year, also commemorating the "Beer Hall Putsch". A handyman named Elser came to Munich, had dinner in the beer cellar where Hitler was about to give a speech, and then hid in a storage closet in the beer hall. After the beer hall closed, he snuck out and slowly chiseled a hole in a pillar behind the stage with a hammer. He put a bomb inside. The bomb was set to explode at 9:20 pm on November 8, 1939, according to schedule, Hitler was giving a speech in the beer cellar at that time.

  But unexpectedly Hitler quickly ended his speech and, unlike usual, did not meet with old party members before hastily leaving; he was already at the airport when the bomb exploded on schedule.

  "Baur, to Kaluga." The Fuehrer had originally intended to fly directly to the southern sector of the Crimea today, but Liedtke had a feeling of foreboding and ordered the pilot to change direction and head for the central sector. Fortunately, the pilot Baur was accustomed to the Fuehrer's sudden changes in route, and the plane banked sharply to the east.

  The plane landed in Kaluga, and Li De first had someone call Berlin to have another identical special plane fly from Berlin to Crimea immediately, then he summoned several generals at the airport.

  Half an hour later, the commander of the Imperial Army, Bitrich, and the commander of the 45th Infantry Division, Schrieper, were summoned to come. To Liddell's surprise, the originally confident Waffen-SS division commander was dejected, speaking incoherently, and his usual arrogance had vanished; the infantry division commander had a stubble beard, his arm was hanging down, and there was a small piece of adhesive tape on his face, a standard image of a defeated general. The intensity of the battle can be seen from this.

  From the reports of the two men, Li De could easily imagine the situation on the front line for the past two days:

  At 4:30 am on January 5, the bright stars in the night sky flashed over their heads, which was the navigation light of the enemy bomber. The plane poured tens of thousands of tons of shells behind the Winter Line, and the German command post, hospital, warehouse, barracks and rear shallow depth positions were subjected to saturation bombing.

  The plane had just left, and on the eastern Soviet position, scarlet cigars rose, Katyusha rockets and large-caliber artillery dyed half of the sky red. The slogan of the Imperial Army's position inspected by the leader-in-chief: "Strive to build the German Empire into a great world power." It was gone in an instant.

  A giant banner on the neighboring position reads: "We are getting stronger day by day, the enemy is rotting away day by day." After being baptized by artillery fire, it became incomplete and only a few words were left: "I, day, day, sun, rotten".

  After the bombing, in the "Ula" sound like a hurricane, the Soviet army poured in like a tide, and dozens of flames spewed out from the German bunker, cutting down the attackers on the ice like harvesting wheat. The Soviet soldiers retreated back like a tide hitting a reef.

  The Soviet 37mm guns, quadruple 20mm anti-aircraft guns and light and heavy machine guns poured dense fire at the shooting holes of the German earthwork fortifications. T-34 tanks were placed on the opposite bank of the river, firing direct shots from their 76.2mm cannons at the exposed strongpoints. Then dozens of smoke bombs were dropped onto the ice surface. Before the smoke had cleared, dozens of steel-plated sleds appeared on the ice: two meters high and four meters wide V-shaped steel plates with three small iron wheels attached to them. The attackers hid behind the steel plates and slowly pushed forward.

  The German army's bullets poured down on the steel plates, leaving only a small white spot. Many steel plates were blown over by anti-tank gun shells, shot through by anti-tank guns, and blown off course by hand grenades. Unfortunately, there were too many steel cars, some of which had already reached the bottom of the fortifications, where they were blasted by a hail of hand grenades that couldn't lift their heads.

  Some armored cars carried gasoline, set fire under the bunker, and after a while the ice armor wrapped around the outside of the bunker melted, and the falling ice slid down to the Soviet troops hiding below, burying the perpetrators in the ice blocks.

  The German soldiers were forced to crawl out of the bunker, climb to the top of the bunker and throw hand grenades down at the Soviet troops, fighting until dusk when the Soviets retreated back to the other side.

  However, the Soviet troops disregarded their casualties and continued to launch wave after wave of fierce assaults, some German machine gunners were driven mad by the mountains of corpses.

  The two superiors finished their report and fell silent. Li De asked about Harold's situation, the infantry regiment commander said: "As a former engineer, he adapted very quickly. As a company commander, he fought very tenaciously."

  Lee Te and two superiors talked for half an hour, gave them a boost, said some "can't be intimidated by the enemy, don't underestimate" correct nonsense, and awarded each person a First Class Iron Cross medal. After that, he boarded the plane with a heavy heart and rushed to the Crimean Peninsula.

  In accordance with his agreement with the Army High Command, the Central Front was to be under the command of the Army High Command, he was the Commander-in-Chief and could not be tied down by defensive warfare, he had to attack, conquer Crimea.

  Li De received a report as he boarded the plane: The special plane that took off from Berlin was ambushed by Soviet planes over the Black Sea and became a scapegoat. Everyone on the plane was frightened, and they believed more in the Führer's intuition.

  After ten days, the head of state and his entourage returned to a farm 28 kilometers southwest of Simferopol. The white-brick red-tiled hall was still there, but this time without Edeltraud and Air Force Adjutant Below: the former was still in training, the latter was still under treatment.

  Manstein warmly welcomed the Führer, saying excitedly that due to the Führer's correct foresight, after the Soviet landing at Feodosiya, they were blocked by the 46th Infantry Division, and the 13th Motorized Infantry Corps had been ordered to be sent there, and the Soviet ships were being bombed by the 8th Air Corps.

  "All I heard was self-praise, why didn't you mention the situation of the Romanian troops?" After arriving here, Li De's mood cleared up like a blue sky, and he couldn't help but make a small joke.

  Manstein sneered: "The Romanian 3rd Army sent a division to rescue, and on the way they met three KV tanks and about ten T-34s. They fled in all directions like seeing ghosts in broad daylight."

  "Romanians." The leader made a comical face and set off without rest towards the landing site 60 kilometers away.

  An 8-wheeled armored reconnaissance vehicle came over, the Führer, Bormann and Manstein sat inside, while others were divided into two trucks following behind, rushing eastward. Occasionally a shell fell on the snow-covered slope, startling a wild rabbit to run in terror.

  The armored vehicle was filled with deafening noise and the strong smell of gasoline, Li De bowed his head and arched his back to avoid hitting his head on the armor plate and surrounding iron pipes and rivets. Despite being careful, he still couldn't avoid it: the armored vehicle suddenly braked, and his head collided heavily with Bao Man's.

  "We're here." The driver's voice came through, loud and clear. Li De opened the side window, the sound of the armored vehicle's engine replaced by the outside gunfire. Outside was a vast expanse of white, with a small hill in front of them, and what seemed to be a fortress on top of it.

  Manstein helped the Führer down from the armoured car, and the three of them made their way up a small hill under artillery fire to an artillery emplacement wrapped in steel plates where a high-powered telescope stood.

  "Ah, not bad." The leader wrapped in snowflakes entered, saw the stove and was delighted. He first warmed his stiff hands, a warm current spreading throughout his body. A wave of wine fumes hit him, Rennia took off her black leather gloves, her slender small hands tightly grasping his already warm hands, he shook them off: "Go go go, your hands are like ice blocks."

  Rania giggled mischievously and reached her hand into his leather jacket. He no longer dodged, silently enduring the icy touch of her hand on his chest, a strange feeling rising in his heart. The Führer's entourage and Manstein were nonchalant, each doing their own thing, while the soldiers stationed at the artillery battery stared with wide eyes, "Clang" - the cup in the tall adjutant's hand fell to the ground.

  After the blood circulation was smooth, Yuan Shou walked to the high-power telescope with a full spirit, his right hand on the eyepiece with a diameter of 23mm, and the other hand holding his left eye, his right eye close to the telescope, but awkwardly found that he had to tiptoe to see the target. Bao Man put a concrete block under his feet. He found that Rennie was bending over.

  "Get out of the way, you're in the way." Rania turned around with a swish of her skirt, kicked away the footstone, shook one of the rotating adjustment valves on the bracket, lowered the telescope, put Li De's hands that had just been dispatched to other places on two other rotating adjustment valves, and finally patted his back with satisfaction, continuing to roast the fire.

  Lee De turned the left hand to adjust the valve, and the beach more than ten kilometers away in the lens became a gray sky. The landing boat was densely floating with barrage balloons, hoping to affect the German aircraft's aiming with such fragile things.

  He turned his right hand, and in front of him flashed a row of enemy landing craft, all with precise dimensions, some emitting smoke, others burning, more landing craft unloading personnel and equipment, some landing craft were approaching the shore, not yet stable, the bow ramp was put down, behind the tank came out black smoke, in front of it spewed flames rushing onto the beach.

  Manstein whispered the situation in his ear: "The enemy landed on a 27-kilometer-wide front and broke through here, where an engineer battalion of the 46th Infantry Division was defending. The second line of defense is at our feet, defended by an infantry battalion."

  "What about other places?" Li De asked without turning his head.

  "This is the only landing site." The lord may have had indigestion due to the tense battle, causing a sour smell in his mouth.

  The chief to avoid him, left the telescope and walked over to the stove, Bowman stepped forward and stuck a pair of drunken eyes on the telescope, clumsily shaking the rotating valve.

  The commander's confidence doubled: "As long as other places hold out, the current landing site is not a problem, it's just that anti-tank forces should be strengthened."

  "I've brought up the 211th Heavy Artillery Battalion, with 13 88mm guns and 15 assault guns." Manstein sat down beside R?nne, who hesitated for a moment before speaking.