Read Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 Online
Authors: Paul Carell
On 8th January Lance-corporal Fischer had just laboriously collected the last handful of wheat-ears and brought them back to his bunker, shaking with cold. Back in the bunker everybody was wildly excited. From Battalion headquarters a report had filtered through that the Russians had made an offer of honourable capitulation. The news spread throughout the pocket like wildfire—heaven only knows by what channels.
It had all happened in the Marinovka area, in the sector of the 3rd Motorized Infantry Division. A Russian captain had appeared under a white flag in front of the foremost positions of the Combat Group Willig. The men sent for their commander, Major Willig. The Russian courteously handed over a letter, adressed "Colonel-General of Panzer Troops Paulus, or representative."
Willig thanked him and allowed the Russian with his white flag to return. Then the telephones started to hum. A courier took the letter to Gumrak. Paulus personally rang through on the telephone with an order that no one was to conduct negotiations for surrender with any Russian officers.
On the following day every trooper could read what Colonel-General Rokossovskiy, the Soviet Commander-in-Chief Don Front, had written to Sixth Army. All over the pocket Russian aircraft dropped leaflets with the text of the Soviet offer of surrender. There it was in black and white, signed by a General from Soviet Supreme Headquarters as well as by Rokossovskiy—all official and sealed:
To all officers, NCOs, and men who cease resistance we guarantee their lives and safety as well as, at the end of the war, return to Germany or any other country chosen by the prisoner-of-war.
All surrendering Wehrmacht troops will retain their uniforms, badges of rank, and decorations, their personal belongings and valuables. Senior officers may retain their swords and bayonets.
Officers, NCOs, and men who surrender will immediately be issued with normal food rations. All wounded, sick, and frost-bitten men will receive medical attention. We expect your answer in writing on 9th January 1943 at 1500 hours Moscow time by way of a representative personally authorized by you, who will drive in a staff car made clearly recognizable by a white flag along the road from Konnaya passing loop to Kotluban station.
Your representative will be met at 1500 hours on 9th January 1943 by duly authorized Soviet officers in Rayon 8, 0-5 km. south-east of passing loop No. 564.
In the event of our call for capitulation being rejected, we hereby inform you that the forces of the Red Army and Red Air Force will be compelled to embark upon the annihilation of the encircled German troops. The responsibility for their annihilation will lie with you.
A leaflet which was dropped simultaneously with the text of the letter, moreover, contained the sinister sentence: "Anyone resisting will be mercilessly wiped out."
Why did not Sixth Array accept this offer of capitulation? Why did it not cease its fruitless struggle before the troops were completely finished physically and mentally? Anybody in reasonable health could expect to survive Russian captivity. It is a question that has been asked continuously to this day.
Paulus continued to declare, even while still in captivity, that he did not surrender on his own initiative because at the beginning of January he could still see a strategic purpose in continued resistance—the tying jdown of strong Russian forces and hence the protection of the threatened southern wing of the Eastern Front.
The same view is expressed to this day by Field-Marshal von Manstein. He says quite clearly: "Since the beginning of December Sixth Army had been tying down sixty major Soviet formations. The situation of the two Army Groups Don and Caucasus would have taken a disastrous turn if Paulus had surrendered at the beginning of January."
Until not so long ago this thesis might have been dismissed as the arguments of men pleading their own case. To-day this objection no longer applies. The Soviet Marshals Chuykov and Yeremenko in their memoirs both fully confirm Man-stein's view. Chuykov attests that in mid-January Paulus was still tying down seven Soviet Armies. Yeremenko makes it clear that the unusual offer made to Paulus on 9th January, the offer of "honourable capitulation," was
motivated by the hope of releasing the seven Soviet Armies in order to move them against Rostov with a view to crushing the southern wing of the German Eastern Front. The Sixth Army's fight to the finish foiled this plan. Whether in retrospect this sacrifice makes sense, in a political assessment of the war, is a different question.
But Paulus was confirmed in his attitude also by another circumstance. On 9th January General Hube returned to the pocket from an interview with Hitler and reported what the Fuehrer and also the officers of the Army High Command had told him: a new relief offensive from the west was being planned. Replenished Panzer formations had already been set in motion; they were being concentrated east of Kharkov. Aerial supplies were to be entirely reorganized. Just like the winter crisis at Kharkov in 1941-42, Hube argued, Stalingrad too would yet be turned into a great victory. The prerequisite, of course, was that the southern part of the Eastern Front was re-established and the Army Group Caucasus successfully pulled back. For that reason Sixth Army had to hold out—if need be by progressively reducing the pocket down to the built-up area of Stalingrad. It was just a race against time.
Hübe's news agreed with the reports which Major von Below, the chief of operations of 71st Infantry Division, brought back to Stalingrad. Below, now again an officer in the Bundeswehr, had fallen ill in Stalingrad in September 1942 and had been flown back to Germany; on 9th January he returned to the pocket together with Hube.
Before his return Below had been at Army High Command about the end of December. There he had been extensively questioned both by Major-General Heusinger, the Chief of the Operations Department, and by Zeitzler, the Chief of the General Staff, about the possibilities of attacking from the west, across the Don at Kalach. Below had gained the impression that Army High Command still viewed the situation of Sixth Army optimistically and considered the chances of a renewed relief attack to be favourable. General Zeitzler had dismissed the Major with the words: 'True, we've got quite enough General Staff officers in the Stalingrad pocket as it is. But if I don't let you return they'll think we've written them off already."
Considering the strategic situations on the one hand and this glimmer of hope on the other, can one blame Paulus for turning down the Soviet call for capitulation on 9th January?
The Soviets' final attack-The road to Pitomnik-The end in the Southern packet—Paulus goes into captivity—Strecker continues to fight-Last flight over the city-The last bread for Stalingrad.
AS Rokossovskiy had announced in his leaflet, the Soviet full-scale attack against the pocket started on 10th January, twenty-four hours after the rejection of the call for surrender. What happened now has been witnessed in military history on only two occasions—once on the Soviet side and now on the German: starved and ill-equipped troops, cut off from all their communications, resisting a superior enemy with a dogged and furious courage which had few parallels. This had happened before, in the Volkhov pocket, when the Soviet Second Striking Army fought on until it was wiped out. Merciless, just as was that battle in the frosty forests along the Volkhov, was also the final fighting in Stalingrad. Only the rôles had changed. The suffering, the hardship, the gallantry, and the misery were the same.
The Soviet attack against the pocket was launched with tremendous ferocity. The German Luftwaffe flak troops with their 8-8-cm. guns in the foremost lines tried to break the force of the armoured onslaught. They fought to the last round and knocked out a surprising number of tanks. But the infantry were crushed in their positions. The Russians broke through in many places. Casualty figures among the weary German units soared rapidly. So did the number of frost-bite victims. The temperature was 35 degrees below zero, and a blizzard was sweeping across the steppe.