THIRTEEN
STALINGRAD, A CITY OF 400,000 AND AN IMPORTANT industrial centre on the Volga River was to become the site of a vicious, merciless battle of attrition. The city itself became a huge funeral pyre, a smashed pile of rubble, strewn with corpses. Well over a million men would be killed or wounded in an inferno of hatred amidst a stubborn will to conquer or die. It was, during the height of battle, never still. Explosions shook the ground, artillery shells, mortars and bombs continuously rained down, fires blazed, and smoke bellowed high into the sky. The gloom beneath the smoke was illuminated only by tracer rounds, while small-arms fire crackled all around. Positions changed by the hour in attacks and counterattacks, men clawing, clubbing and fighting for every metre of rubble. If they lost ground, then they attacked to retake it, no matter the cost in lives. Stalingrad was one of the most horrendous, savage clashes of arms of World War II. Men died from the combined effects of constant fear, total exhaustion, nervous tension, unremitting traumatic stress, hunger, thirst, malnutrition, hatred, anger, depression and despair.1
Not knowing what lay ahead, von Strachwitz and 16th Panzer cheerfully marched towards Stalingrad, with the 3rd and 60th Motorised Divisions, all still part of XIV Panzer Corps under von Wietersheim. A Silesian and ex-guardsman, like von Strachwitz, he was no Nazi or great believer in Hitler. He got on very well with Hube and his divisional commanders who respected both his integrity and ability. Hube, it must be said, got along with most people, as did von Strachwitz, although the latter could not tolerate fools and slaggards and on occasion could not hide his feelings.
XIV Panzer was the only panzer corps in Sixth Army, with the majority of panzer divisions being attached to von Kleist on his march to the Caucasus. This would later change when Hitler and the High Command saw the need for armoured reinforcements for Sixth Army and sent 4th Panzer Army to support the drive on Stalingrad.
On 22 August the battle groups of the division moved along the dusty roads down into the river valley to assemble near Lutichenski on the south bank of the Don. Here they were supported by the very effective HS129 ground-attack aircraft, which were armoured and specialised in destroying Russian tanks. These aircraft often destroyed the Russian tanks well before von Strachwitz and his men got to them. Stukas also flew support missions, their gull-wing shapes plummeting down onto Russian positions a welcome sight to the advancing tanks and grenadiers. On completing their missions the Stukas frequently flew low over the panzer columns, their sirens screaming in a comradely greeting.
Lieutenant Radu, the assistant ordnance officer of the division’s 64th Panzergrenadier Regiment, was travelling by motorcycle carrying a despatch when he suddenly came up against a Russian light tank. Refusing to accept that this was an unequal struggle, he swiftly threw a hand grenade into the tank’s open hatch, forcing the concussed and slightly wounded crew to surrender.
Von Strachwitz’s battalion, supported by the truckborne 2nd Battalion, 64th Panzergrenadier Regiment, crossed the Don at dawn of what promised to be another hot and dusty day. As per Hube’s instructions he ordered his panzers to move at all speed, ignoring any enemy at the flanks and engaging only those to their front or who challenged their progress. The cavalryman in him exulted at the rapid thrust deep into enemy lines, the very tip of the spearhead of his division and the entire Sixth Army. It was heady stuff and what he was bred to do. His only fear was an aerial attack for which he had no riposte. Of particular concern was being attacked by German Stukas, who would not be expecting a German formation to be this far forward and might not see the recognition flag on his tank. Fortunately both German and Russian aircraft had more urgent business elsewhere. He pushed his men relentlessly. Any tank that fell out due to mechanical problems had to wait alone on the open steppe until repairs could be effected or until the division caught up.
Resistance was light. Some of the Russians they came across were already on the run; they simply scattered or surrendered, to be waved westwards. Others were elements heading for the front, which were quickly disposed of if they were prepared to resist, or given a friendly wave and ignored if they mistook the German tanks for their own.
On 23 August the Panzer Graf’s advance took him to Gumrak airfield where Soviet aircraft were still taking off and landing, as the Germans were considered to still be several days away. Von Strachwitz coolly and methodically deployed his panzers, then gave the order to fire. Tracer streaked towards parked planes, while high-explosive rounds crashed into hangers, vehicles, buildings, gun emplacements and aircraft. Chaos erupted, fuel and ammunition exploded, aircraft burned then exploded as the flames ignited their fuel and munitions. Flying debris and shrapnel did fearful execution to men and machines alike, as the airfield was consumed in flame, smoke, and flying rubble.
The anti-aircraft gun crews frantically turned their guns onto their land-based antagonists but they were too slow to adjust their sights for the correction. They also had trouble spotting their ground targets, for which they were completely untrained. They became easy targets for the German panzers. Blast after blast demolished the gun emplacements sending body and gun parts hurtling through the air. German machine guns cut a swathe through the Soviet positions shooting down those who had survived the high-explosive rounds.
A German Stuka squadron joined the fray, plummeting in steep dives to release their bombs on the mayhem below. Some of the Soviet anti-aircraft guns diverted their fire to the more familiar threat from above. Despite the hurricane of fire engulfing them, none of the gunners abandoned their post. Whenever the anti-aircraft rounds managed to hit a panzer they invariably bounced off, streaking off into the sky.
The Panzer Graf ordered his tanks to close in. Firing their machine guns the panzers smashed onto the airfield, shooting or grinding down with their tracks anyone who stood in their way. When opposition was finally silenced, the Graf halted his panzers. An entire aerial regiment had been destroyed along with the anti-aircraft regiment providing it with protection. It was a grim but exceedingly satisfactory result. Von Strachwitz’s men began joking that instead of painting tank kill rings on their barrels they would have to paint red stars or aircraft on their turrets. Some of them joked they were now experten to rival the Luftwaffe pilots.2 However when the Graf and his men dismounted and moved among the carnage they recoiled in horror. Many of the gun crews were women, some looked like mere schoolgirls. The Germans were aghast that the Russians would employ young girls to operate their guns, feeling anger that they had been forced to kill them. The women had been poorly trained and lacked experience, but they didn’t lack courage. Vasily Grossman, the Soviet journalist, who was present at Stalingrad was told about the action by the anti-aircraft regiment’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel German:
On the night of the 23rd, eighty German tanks advanced on the Traktorny in two columns, and there were a lot of vehicles with infantry. There are many girls in German’s regiment, instrument operators, direction finders, intelligence and so on [including anti-aircraft gun crews actually manning the guns]. There was a massive air raid at the same time as the tanks came. Some of the batteries were firing at the tanks, others at the aircraft. When the tanks had advanced right to the battery of Senior Lieutenant Skakun, he opened fire at the tanks. His battery was then attacked by aircraft. He ordered two guns to fire at the tanks and the other two at the aircraft. There was no communication with the battery. “Well, they must have been knocked out,” [the regimental commander] thought. Then he heard the thunder of fire. Then silence again. “Well, they are finished now!” he thought again. Firing broke out again. It was only on the night of 24 August that four soldiers [from this battery] came back. They had carried Skakun on a groundsheet. He had been heavily wounded. The girls had died by their guns.3
Coming close behind von Strachwitz’s battalion was Hube at the head of his panzergrenadiers in their APCs. They had some sporadic fighting but the resistance was disorganised. Overhead, Stukas and Heinkel bombers shepherded by their fighter escorts flew in waves towards Stalingrad. Signals flashed backwards and forwards as corps and army commanders feverishly sought information about progress while maintaining contact with the various combat formations including von Strachwitz’s battalion on point. In Hube’s APC, his signallers Schmidt, Queteux and Luckner handled over 456 coded signals on just the first day of battle.4
Von Strachwitz kept up his momentum, and in what amounted to a coup de main his panzers pushed through the industrial suburb of Rynok at the northern edge of Stalingrad to finally reach the mighty Volga. His was the first German tank to reach the west bank, halting while he and his crew silently gazed across. The west bank was exceedingly high, towering more than 500 metres above the Soviet-occupied eastern bank. The river at this point was over two kilometres wide. While the Graf and his crew were staring across to the other bank the rest of his men were rejoicing. They had reached the mighty Volga. Stalingrad would now quickly fall, and they could enjoy their victory with a much-needed respite. It was a happy day, full of satisfaction and relief.
Essentially however 16th Panzer was on its own. It had covered some 80 kilometres in a day, leaving the 3rd and 60th Motorised Divisions of the corps well behind in its wake. Fortunately the Soviets had been taken by surprise and did not immediately close in the gap behind the panzers.
On 24 August a battle group was sent to attack the industrial suburb of Spartakovka. Stukas of von Richhofen’s air fleet streamed overhead, bombing the Russian positions ahead of the German advance, but it wasn’t enough to stifle the fierce opposition the grenadiers encountered. Machine-gun nests, pill boxes, dug-in tanks, trench lines and bunkers were all heavily manned and stoutly defended by the determined Soviets. Not content with just merely defending, the Russians launched a counterattack with strong tank forces against Hube’s northern flank, forcing him onto the defensive. T-34s stormed towards the German lines, some of the tanks manned by workers from the Dzerzhinsky Tractor Works where the tanks had just come off the assembly lines. A few tanks actually broke through to reach the regimental headquarters of the division’s 64th Panzer Grenadier Regiment and had to be knocked out by the headquarters troops with hand-held explosive charges.
However, the German assault was not entirely without result. Battle Group Strehlke—consisting of combat engineers, anti-tank troops and artillery men—managed to capture the landing stage of the railway ferry on the Volga, cutting off the Volga connection from south Russia to Moscow.5 In the process they seized a vast quantity of heavy equipment and weapons.
Elsewhere along the Volga’s banks, Hube’s gunners played havoc with the river traffic, sinking several barges and ferries. Unknown to the men, one was carrying civilians, a large number of whom were killed or wounded. Civilians were also killed in large numbers on land, some 40,000 by aerial bombing during the battle. Stalin had categorically refused to allow their evacuation on the basis that his troops would fight that much harder to protect them. NKVD and other troops were stationed at the ferry to turn back any civilians who tried to cross to safety.
The Russians rushed in reinforcements, sending in the 35th Infantry Division augmented with T-34 and light tanks to seal off the German bridgeheads over the Don and hold the area open for more troops to smash the Don bridgeheads as well as 16th Panzer on the Volga. This move now succeeded in isolating 16th Panzer from Sixth Army, which was still fighting around the Don.
The isolated German division formed a hedgehog defensive position to stave off the Soviet attacks. The shortage of trained infantry forced the Russians to send in raw, cobbled together militia battalions consisting of factory workers, including women. Without training or proper weapons they were slaughtered en masse, their courage no substitute for skill, weapons and sound tactics. Despite the horrendous casualties, their commissars sent the labour battalions into the attack again and again. The 16th Panzer machine guns did fearful execution to their ranks, but still they came on, urged on by their commissars waving their nickel-plated pistols behind them.
Successful as his defence was, Hube was worried. Ammunition, fuel and food were all rapidly running out. Fuel and food could be evenly rationed, but ammunition was essential if his division was to survive. Ju-52 transport planes, the three-engined workhorses of the Wehrmacht, flew in to drop supplies but these were totally inadequate to meet the division’s needs. At the rate the Germans were expending ammunition against the militia’s suicide attacks, 16th Panzer would be overrun.
To the north of the German hedgehog, the Russians continued to send in their tank brigades. Here von Strachwitz once more came into his own. He led his panzers with his now practised flanking manoeuvres against the Russian tanks, in this way hitting the Russians in their more vulnerable side and rear armour, making nearly every hit lethal. Von Strachwitz manoeuvred as well as the scarcity of fuel allowed. Any of his tanks that were beyond repair were drained of their last drop of fuel as were any knocked-out trucks or cars. Some of his men had to be stopped from trying to clandestinely siphon petrol out of Hube’s staff car. The German armour acted as a fire brigade for the hard-pressed panzer grenadiers, who often had no answer to the Soviet tank attacks. Combined Russian infantry and armour attacks blazed all along the division’s northern perimeter with von Strachwitz’s panzers moving rapidly from one hot spot to another.
Air drops often had to be fought over. On one occasion a German supply drop landed between the lines, resulting in a race between von Strachwitz with four Panzer IIIs and 17 Russian tanks. Knowing that if he got there first he would have to take the Russians frontally and might well be surrounded, he halted his panzers; then turning north he circled round, approaching from the south behind the Russians. The Soviets had stopped at the airdrop point with some crew, probably one from each tank, dismounting to collect the spoils. Thinking the German tanks had retreated, the Russians were relaxed, their guns pointing towards the German lines. Absorbed in collecting their booty they didn’t notice the Germans coming up behind them. The German tanks halted and von Strachwitz calmly gave the order to fire.
Four barrels flashed, sending their armour-piercing rounds at close range into four Russian tanks, setting them immediately alight. A fifth tank saw them and began turning its turret around. Von Strachwitz gave his gunner new fire directions and the fifth tank exploded. Not having a radio the Russian had not been able to warn his comrades of the threat to their rear. Another four Russians were quickly brewed up before they realised where the danger was coming from. They frantically turned their turrets to face the Germans but were too slow and four more tanks were destroyed. One Russian got off a round but missed while the others accelerated away, just avoiding another German salvo. The Russian who fired was promptly despatched, with hits from two panzers smashing him completely. Von Strachwitz then collected the supplies and several tank crews as prisoners, leaving behind 14 burning Soviet tanks.
Even with the air drops, Hube knew his situation was rapidly becoming untenable. He called all his regimental and battalion commanders together, including von Strachwitz, and told them of his decision:
The shortage of ammunition and fuel is such that our only chance is to break through to the west. I absolutely refuse to fight a pointless battle that must end in annihilation of my troops and I therefore order a breakout to the west. I shall personally take responsibility for this order; and will know how to justify it in the proper quarters. I absolve you gentlemen, from your oath of loyalty [to the Führer], and I leave you the choice of either leading your men in this action or of handing over your commands to other officers who are prepared to do so. It is impossible to hold our positions without ammunition. I am acting contrary to the Führer’s orders.6
Hube knew that by ordering this withdrawal he was ending his career, and facing a court martial and possible imprisonment; Hitler would not countenance a withdrawal from such an important bridgehead as this, no matter how decorated or highly regarded the commander. His deliberate absolution of his subordinate commanders is a unique action and the sheer measure of the man. His moral courage equalled his physical, while his unfettered concern for his men and plain common sense was a reflection of his superb leadership ability. If General Paulus or even von Manstein had shown anything near to Hube’s moral courage, the disaster at Stalingrad would have been greatly mitigated with tens of thousands of men retaining their lives as a result of an ordered breakout.
In the event, Hube did not have to carry out the fateful order. The 3rd Motorised Division arrived, like the cavalry of old, in the nick of time to link up with Hube’s division. It brought with it a supply column of 250 trucks loaded with desperately needed supplies of fuel, food, weapons and ammunition. 16th Panzer was saved. Not that this largesse was provided by the Sixth Army quartermasters; it was simply fortuitous that 3rd Motorised’s tank battalion had captured an entire Soviet freight train being unloaded near Kuzsuichi. It was loaded with US-made Ford motor vehicles, food, fuel, ammunition, weapons and other materials, a great deal of which came courtesy of the US and UK governments.
However, as much as the vitally needed supplies and reinforcements of the 3rd Motorised Division improved the situation, the Germans remained isolated by a 50-kilometre gap from the bulk of Paulus’ Sixth Army. As if to emphasise this vulnerability, the Russians attacked the western flank of 3rd Motorised, tearing a huge gap in their lines. The very concerned corps commander, General von Wietersheim, radioed Paulus to inform him that they could not stay on the Volga and hold communications to the rear, and asked for a decision. Knowing Soviet resistance was collapsing and that von Wietersheim’s divisions would soon be reinforced, he simply replied, “Do not retreat.”
Two days later 60th Motorised joined the orphan divisions while another five divisions fanned out behind it to open up a supply corridor between the Don and Volga.7 By this time the Panzer Graf’s tanks were almost running on empty again, facing the prospect of being dug in as static defences, so he was highly relieved to see more supplies rolling in so his precious panzers could move again.
Elsewhere, events were moving favourably for the Germans. General von Seydlitz-Kurzbach, a descendant of Frederick the Great’s famous cavalry commander, had launched the two divisions of his corps on a frontal attack at the centre of Stalingrad. After heavy fighting they breached the Soviet defences to come to within 10 kilometres of the city outskirts.
By 31 August General Kempf’s Panzer Corps had cut a swathe in the enemy’s rear, cutting the railway line south of Pitomik airfield. The Russians, in desperate straits, pulled back, and on 3 September all German units west of Stalingrad finally formed up to create a broad front less than 10 kilometres from the city. The major assault on Stalingrad and one of the greatest battles of the war could now begin.
NOTES
1. The Germans were so concerned by these sudden inexplicable deaths with no recognisable symptoms that they sent a medical specialist to try and ascertain the cause.
2. The Germans did not use the term “ace” to recognise pilots with numerous kills but called them experten (experts) a term which implied not only the accumulation of kills, but also flying skill and experience.
3. Vasily Grossman (ed. and trans. Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova), A Writer at War With the Red Army 1941–1945 (The Harvell Press, London 2005), p. 128.
4. Paul Carrell, Hitler’s War on Russia, Vol 1: Hitler Moves East (Ballantine Books, 1963).
5. Ibid.
6. V. E. Tarrant, Stalingrad (Leo Cooper, London, 1992), p. 60, citing AOK6la Kreigstagebuch.
7. Ibid.