Virtually no gasoline was issued—until the very end the
meagre supplies were being hoarded for a breakout, and the army's
tanks and self-propelled artillery were dug into permanent positions
in the frozen rubble. The men were too weak to dig fresh emplacements
or communication trenches; when forced out of their old positions
they would simply lie in the ground behind heaped-up snow "parapets,"
numb with cold and the inevitability of death. To be wounded might be
lucky, more often it was a stroke of hideous misfortune among
comrades too exhausted to lift a man onto a stretcher; where medical
services had no anaesthetic other than artificially induced
frostbite.
While the landing ground at Pitomnik was still usable, some of the
seriously wounded were flown out from there in the returning
transports, but as the days passed fewer and fewer pilots dared risk
touching down on the cratered runway. The Heinkels, with their weaker
undercarriage, confined their mission to making low-level drops. Many
of the Junkers broke up on landing or were destroyed by Russian
artillery fire. Others, with their take-off runs perilously reduced
by craters and wreckage, had to leave half empty or, more harrowing
still, lighten their load by turning out "passengers" who
were already aboard. This led to some ugly scenes:
There were about thirty of us on the 'plane, mostly wounded,
with stretcher cases piled on top of each other all over the floor.
There were also some people, couriers and the like, who were quite
unharmed—the sort of people who always, it seems, get
themselves out of the tightest scrape by the use of their wits. We
started trundling across the ground at an ever-increasing speed, with
clouds of snow blowing back from the propellers; at intervals one
wheel would drop in a crater with a terrible crash. Then to our
horror the engines cut and we could feel the brakes coming on. The
pilot turned round and started taxiing back...
A Lieutenant of the
Luftwaffe
came through and said that
we could not get airborne because of the ground, and that we would
have to shed about 2,000 kilos . . . twenty men would have to get
out. At once there was the most terrific din, everybody shouting at
once, one man claimed that he was travelling by order of the Army
Staff, another from the SS that he had important Party documents,
many others who cried about their families, that their children had
been injured in air raids, and so on. Only the men on the stretchers
kept silent, but their terror showed in their faces ...
Sometimes the wounded would have to wait for days, huddled around
stoves in matchboard shanties at the edge of the airfield or in the
"safety" of open trenches, where they would freeze to death
overnight. At others shortage of fuel and transport meant that they
never got to Pitomnik at all. Then the prospect of an aircraft
returning empty was an unbearable temptation, and at the last moment
there would be attempts to rush it. On New Year's Day 1943 it was
promulgated that nobody was allowed to board an aircraft, for
whatever purpose—even unloading and ground servicing—without
a written permit from the 6th Army Chief of Staff. This led to
further delays, particularly for the seriously wounded. Many men were
shot out of hand trying to force their way on board, and their
corpses lay about in the snow. There were at least two cases of
soldiers being taken aloft hanging on to the undercarriage or tail
wheel in desperation; they fell to their death in a matter of
minutes.
Others found more ingenious ways of getting back to Germany:
I had taken out a case of medical supplies to the advanced
dressing station at Dmitriyevka. It was in a warehouse with the roof
open to the sky in places from shellfire. It was absolutely crammed
with wounded and most of them were in a bad state, dead and dying
together, crying and praying aloud. ... an orderly told me that they
were going to be flown out . . . just then a
Katyusha
salvo
fell in the street and calls from some more wounded took him and the
Doctor outside. I went over to a part of the building where the men
were quiet. They were so badly injured they were unconscious and some
of them had already died. I turned one of them off his stretcher ...
I fired three shots through my left foot and lay down. I lost
consciousness ... it was dark and the pain was frightful . . . there
were no lights in the warehouse . . . I kept telling myself, "It
will be an hour, a few hours, and then the flight." Two days
passed and the blood round my foot froze solid, but I dared not call
for attenion . . . two of the men near me died. Then—Morning
of Joy! They started to move us ...
But the corporal's elation was short-lived. The wounded were taken
to a casualty clearing station for inspection and the issue of
"flight permits." There a doctor found powder burns on his
skin and decided the wound was self-inflicted—a capital offence
on the Eastern front. He lay in the cellars of the GUM department
store for a fortnight before being captured, in agony from frost
gangrene, and the Russians saved his life by amputating the leg at
the hip.
Following the rejection of the surrender ultimatum on 10th
January, the Russians opened an all-out offensive. Throughout the
night their artillery ravaged the lines of the 6th Army, and with the
icy dawn, the first moves in a great concentric assault began.
In that inferno most of the Germans must have shared Colonel
Selle's judgment: "The cover of the tomb is closing upon us."
But a rumour spread that because his surrender terms had been
rejected Zhukov had given orders that no prisoners were to be taken,
and many detachments fought literally to the last round and then
committed suicide. (Suicides had become so common in the preceding
period that Paulus was compelled to issue a special order declaring
them "dishonourable.")
The main Russian effort was directed against the western end of
the 6th Army position, the "nose of Marinovka," where the
defenders had little cover from either ground or buildings. On the
second day the Russians sliced five miles off the perimeter. The 29th
Motorised, which had led Guderian's Panzer group across White Russia
in the summer of 1941, one of the finest units in the German Army,
was finally destroyed. For forty-eight hours the 6th Army gave
ground, until it was forced back onto the frozen gully of the
Russochska. Then the Russian pressure slackened. Incredibly, Paulus
had weathered the storm, but his army had expended the last reserves
of energy. The whole system of reliefs had broken down. Units simply
fought, and expired, where they stood. The cellar "hospitals"
had to refuse to accept any more wounded, and many of the injured had
to plead with their comrades to shoot them on the spot. Pitomnik
airfield was overrun on the second day, and after that time supplies
could be dropped only at night, although it was possible to land with
a light airplane at the battered Gumrak strip, a few yards from
Paulus' headquarters.
When the Russians resumed their attack on the 16th they made
better progress, still applying the tactics of forcing the Germans
back from three sides of the compass against the iron barrier of
Chuikov's 62nd Army in the ruins of the city itself. On 23rd January
they captured the Gumrak airstrip, and the last contact with the
outside world was broken. For another week the battle dragged on—now
back in its original seat, the battered buildings and underground
Warrens of the September fighting, the Krasny Oktyabr factory, the
Matveyev-Kurgan. Then, on 30th January, the southern pocket collapsed
and Paulus was captured. The rest of the 6th Army surrendered two
days later.
During the night the Russians published a special communiqué,
announcing the surrender and giving the names of all the senior
officers (including Paulus) who had been captured. At midday on 1st
February a special Führer conference was called at which this
was discussed, and the record of proceedings at this meeting has been
preserved.
Hitler is not at his best. He rambles and repeats himself. A
certain air of fantasy pervades the whole conference—one not
dispelled by Zeitzler's extraordinary servility and his acquiescence
in the unprecedented notion that officers of the General Staff should
commit suicide rather than submit to capture.
[Hitler refers three times to the story of a woman who committed
suicide. His first version (recorded at the start of the conference)
differs substantially from that which he told Jodl (after Zeitzler
had departed) later that same afternoon:
"Such a beautiful woman she was, really first-class. Just
because of a small matter, insulted by a few words, she said, "Then
I can go, I'm not needed.' Her husband answered, 'Why don't you?' So
the woman went, wrote farewell letters, and shot herself."]
(However, the Führer's instincts have not deserted him so far
as to prevent him from making an accurate forecast as to the future
careers of Paulus and Seydlitz.)
Hitler: They have surrendered there formally and absolutely.
Otherwise they would have closed ranks, formed a hedgehog, and shot
themselves with their last bullet. When you consider that a woman has
the pride to leave, to lock herself in, and to shoot herself right
away just because she has heard a few insulting remarks, then i can't
have any respect for a soldier who is afraid of that and prefers to
go into captivity. I can only say: I can understand a case like that
of General Giraud; we come in, he gets out of the car and is grabbed.
But—
Zeitzler: I can't understand it either. I'm still of the opinion
that it might not be true; perhaps he [Paulus] is lying there, badly
wounded.
Hitler: No, it is true—they'll be brought to Moscow, to the
GPU right away, and they'll blurt out orders for the northern pocket
to surrender too. That Schmidt will sign anything.
[In fact, Schmidt was one of the very few senior officers captured
in the Stalingrad pocket who remained loyal to Hitler throughout his
captivity.]
A man who doesn't have the courage in such a time to take the road
that every man has to take some time doesn't have the strength to
withstand that sort of thing. He will suffer torture in his soul. In
Germany there has been too much emphasis on training the intellect
and not enough on strength of character—
Zeitzler: One can't understand this type of man.
Hitler: Don't say that. I saw a letter—it was addressed to
Below. I can show it to you. An officer in Stalingrad wrote, "I
have come to the following conclusions about these people —Paulus,
question mark; Seydlitz, should be shot; Schmidt, should be shot—"
Zeitzler: I have also heard bad reports about Seydlitz.
Hitler: —and under that, "Hube—The Man."
Naturally, one would say that it would be better to leave Hube in
there and bring out the others. But since the value of men is not
immaterial, and since we need men in the entire war, I am definitely
of the opinion that it was right to bring Hube out. In peacetime in
Germany about 18,000 or 20,000 people a year chose to commit suicide,
even without being in such a position. Here is a man who sees 50,000
or 60,000 of his soldiers die defending themselves bravely to the
end. How can he surrender himself to the Bolshevists? Oh, that is—
Zeitzler: That is something one can't understand at all.
Hitler: But I had my doubts before. That was the moment when I
received the report that he was asking what he should do. How can he
even ask about such a thing? From now on, every time a fortress is
besieged and the commandant is called on to surrender, he is going to
ask, "What shall I do now?"
Zeitzler: There is no excuse. When his nerves threaten to break
down, then he must kill himself.
Hitler: When the nerves break down, there is nothing left but to
admit that one can't handle the situation, and to shoot oneself. One
can also say that the man should have shot himself just as the old
commanders who threw themselves on their swords when they saw that
their cause was lost. That goes without saying. Even Varus gave his
slave the order: "Now kill me."
Zeitzler: I still think they may have done that and that the
Russians are only claiming to have captured them all.
Hitler: No.
Engel: [Oberstleutnant Gerhard Engel, Army Adjutant to Hitler
1937-44.] The extraordinary thing is, if I may say so, that they have
not announced whether Paulus was badly wounded when he was taken.
Tomorrow they could say that he died of his wounds.
Hitler. Do you have exact information about his being wounded? The
tragedy has happened now. Maybe it's a warning.
Engel. The names of the generals may not all be correct.
Hitler. In this war no more field marshals will be made. All that
will be done only after the conclusion of the war. I won't go on
counting my chickens before they are hatched.
Zeitzler. We were so completely sure how it would end that
granting him a final satisfaction—
Hitler. We had to assume that it would end heroically.
Zeitzler. How could one imagine anything else?
Hitler. Together with such men in such surroundings, how could he
have brought himself to act differently? If such things can happen, I
really must say that any soldier who risks his life again and again
is an idiot. Now if a private is overwhelmed, I can understand it.
Zeitzler. It's much easier for the leader of an outfit. Everyone
is looking at him. It's easy for him to shoot himself. It's difficult
for the ordinary soldier.
Hitler. This hurts me so much because the heroism of so many
soldiers is nullified by one single characterless weakling—and
that is what the man is going to do now. You have to imagine, he'll
be brought to Moscow, and imagine that rat trap there. There he will
sign anything. He'll make confessions, make proclamations—you'll
see. They will now walk down the slope of spiritual bankruptcy to its
lowest depths. One can only say that a bad deed always produces new
evils. With soldiers the fundamental thing is always character, and
if we don't manage to instil that, if we just breed purely
intellectual acrobats and spiritual athletes, we're never going to
get a race that can stand up to the heavy blows of destiny. That is
the decisive point.