Malashenko finally knew everything and figured out why these Germans were playing word games on the so-called agreement and covering up some details that should have been clearly stated on it.
It turns out that the composition of the remnants of the 41st Armored Corps is not simple. It is not an ordinary German army, just like the millions of German prisoners of war imprisoned in Soviet prisoner-of-war camps.
Of course, this does not mean that these Germans in the remnants of the 41st Armored Corps are all Aryan supermen with three heads and six arms and inhuman appearance. The special point of this remnant German army does not lie in this, but in their subordinate units and Going back in time to trace the origins.
It was also after seeing off Major General Gram and his entourage who said he would "discuss it after we go back and report the final results later" that Malashenko, who felt that something was amiss, personally interrogated several people. I just captured the junior German officers with a higher military rank, and used some conventional operating methods to scare them, so that they would know the truth only after they told the truth.
It turns out that a small branch of a "quite famous" Wehrmacht unit is now entangled in the remnants of the 41st Armored Corps. The organization is still there, and the remaining soldiers are still there.
As for the name of this rather famous National Defense Force unit, let alone Malashenko, even the staff officer responsible for coordinating the interrogation and taking the transcripts was shocked when he heard it, and then he gritted his teeth and said fiercely. His teeth were itching and he wanted to eat those fascists alive.
This German army was only famous for one thing: the arrest and execution of the Soviet female guerrilla Zoya in 1941. The torture methods used to extract confessions before executing Zoya were so brutal that the news spread to Moscow. Afterwards, even Comrade Stalin, the loving father who sat in the Kremlin's core power office, issued an order in anger that "all German troops who do not accept surrender will be shot."
What really surprised Malashenko was not the special nature of this group of German soldiers, but that this group of people could actually be encountered by him here and fall into his hands on this East Prussian battlefield.
According to the confession of the German major who was interrogated by Malashenko in person after being captured, the 332nd Regiment of the 197th Infantry Division of the German Wehrmacht, which arrested and tortured Zoya and then executed Zoya, later evolved several times due to the continuous development and changes of the war, and divided into Multiple troops.
Let’s take the recent battle situation as an example.
At the end of Operation Bagration in the fall of 1944, the superior unit of the 332nd Regiment that executed Zoya, the German 197th Infantry Division, followed Army Group Center to face the powerful frontal offensive of the Red Army. They fought tooth and nail, but were ultimately defeated by the Red Army. The torrent of steel was washed away in pieces, causing heavy losses.
In an unknown battle, probably unknown to the German major, the 197th Infantry Division was surrounded and attacked by superior Red Army forces. The entire army was almost wiped out. Even the division commander was hit by heavy artillery fire from the Red Army while leading his troops to retreat. Blast to death.
After that, the 197th Infantry Division, whose organization was crippled and lost its combat effectiveness, absorbed some remnants of other units and retreated to the rear for reorganization.
After reviewing the situation, the German superiors concluded that there was no need to replenish the 197th Infantry Division. The 197th Infantry Division was almost completely exhausted, leaving only an empty frame and a bunch of scrapped infantry divisions.
The cost of raising a new infantry division is the same.
The 197th Infantry Division is not a meritorious German unit with outstanding military exploits, and there is no need to retain its ordinary numerical designation for reconstruction.
In view of this, the Central Army Group Headquarters directly took off the designation of the 197th Infantry Division after the war, dispersed and reorganized its remaining troops, and used them as supplementary forces to fill in the emergency after the super fiasco of Operation Bagration.
Among the various German field units waiting to make up for their shortfalls.
Coincidentally, the 41st Armored Corps, which retreated and was entrenched in Poland at that time, received some of the troops from the 197th Infantry Division after it was disbanded and reorganized.
What's even more damning coincidence is that the batch of supplementary troops received by the 41st Armored Corps is the 332nd Regiment, which is the most complete among the remaining units of the 197th Infantry Division and has a relatively small loss of troops. Or perhaps it is precisely because the 41st Armored Corps
The army is the main first-level field force group of the National Defense Forces. The priority of troop replenishment is very high. It needs to be given the highest level of priority guarantee as possible, so it can be supplemented by such an infantry regiment with a relatively complete structure and rich combat experience.
After taking over the 332nd Regiment, the subsequent battles experienced by the 41st Armored Corps were still not smooth.
In the Polish Battle, because the central front was penetrated, the Grossdeutschland Division was completely annihilated, and the city of Warsaw was lost at the speed of light, which resulted in the German north and south fronts being separated, unable to take care of each other, and ultimately failed. This is a well-known thing now.
At that time, the 41st Armored Corps was in northern Poland. After receiving the news that the battlefield was out of control, it was also the first group to take action to evacuate to the north to avoid being dumped by the encircled Soviet mobile group and being attacked from both sides. The final result of its retreat was
The destination is East Prussia in northern Poland.
After withdrawing into East Prussia, the 41st Armored Corps took a short rest and was soon sent to the forefront of the East Prussian theater bordering Poland as a first-class main field group to deploy troops, set up defenses, and prepare to withstand the attack.
The Soviet strategic onslaught can be foreseen next.
Things have basically been sorted out here, and then there is the story of Malashenko commanding the leader's division to attack and violently bombard the place.
According to the subsequent account of the captured German major, who was very honest and timid after being intimidated, the 332nd Infantry Regiment underwent a second split after being merged into the 41st Armored Corps. One of the battalions was merged into the 41st Armored Corps.
In the armored division that had been killed by Malashenko earlier, elite armored grenadier units were assigned to the armored forces to cooperate in operations.
The remaining two battalions absorbed a new recruit supplementary battalion. After the veterans led the new recruits and diluted it, an elite infantry regiment with rich combat experience was officially formed and assigned to another one, which is currently the 3rd Infantry Regiment.
The only remaining armored division under the establishment list of the 41st Armored Corps is used as the main force.
In other words, Malashenko had previously killed one-third of the group of Nazi executioners who had murdered Zoya and were ordered to kill her by her loving father without knowing it.
The remaining two-thirds neither ran away nor died. Excluding the German corpses lying scattered on the battlefield, the rest are still nesting in the remnants of the 41st Armored Corps, lingering.