FOURTEEN
THE ADVANCE OF SIXTH ARMY DIDN’T PROVIDE A GREAT deal of relief to the 16th Panzer Division. On 30 October, Russian forces landed at Lukashenka and attacked the division with a mixed force of workers, militia and regular infantry. With some difficulty, the division repulsed all the Russian human wave attacks. Hube ordered a counterattack, which captured the northern strongpoints after vicious hand-to-hand fighting. The Russians counterattacked in turn and recovered their lost positions with both sides suffering heavy casualties, the Red Siberian assault troops proving to be particularly formidable. The Germans launched another attack, dislodging the Siberians, who in their turn drove out the Germans again. Each savage seesaw battle took its toll on the 16th Panzer’s shock troops.
On 12 September General Vasily Chuikov was appointed commander of the Russian 62nd Army, which with 54,000 men, 900 guns and mortars and 110 tanks, was defending Stalingrad. He also had 100,000 untrained but fanatical militia to augment his forces.1Chuikov was an even bigger thug than Zhukov, and even more profligate with his men’s lives, but he was what Stalingrad needed to hold out against the German onslaught at the time.
On this day too, Hitler summoned Paulus and von Weichs, commander of Army Group B, to his headquarters at Vinnitsa in the Ukraine to discuss the final assault. Paulus, already showing the strain of command with a nervous tic affecting his drawn face, told of his concerns over his long exposed northern flank. He also mentioned his mounting casualties which had reached 7,700 dead and 31,000 wounded since 23 August, when his army had broken out of the Don bridgehead.2 Hitler ignored these figures, and optimistically assured his generals that the Russians were no longer capable of launching a major offensive. He told Paulus that his exposed flanks would be covered by the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies and that he should concentrate on the assault on Stalingrad. Paulus returned to Sixth Army, his faith in the Führer reinforced.
Graf von Strachwitz was still defending the northern flank of the division with countless engagements against Soviet tanks and infantry. Slowly the number of operational tanks available to him was being reduced, although fortunately most of the tanks knocked out of action were repairable. This was mainly because Strachwitz’s panzers were able to dominate or hold the battlefield, which meant that his disabled tanks could be repaired on the spot or towed to the rear by recovery vehicles. Still, on occasion, his battalion often had no more than six runners, and sometimes fewer.
In the central and southern area of Stalingrad, the Germans marshalled their troops for the main onslaught on the 400-kilometre front of the Stalingrad axis. The Germans and Russians were equal in manpower in the sector with 590,000 men, but the Germans had more tanks and initially more aircraft.3
The onslaught was preceded by a bombardment from 3,000 guns and mortars, while the Luftwaffe launched successive waves of bombers and Stukas which pulverised the Soviet positions in and around the city. The Russians replied with their own artillery, and their defences held firm until 14 September when the Germans gained a narrow corridor to the banks of the Volga. However, they failed to widen this salient and the fighting degenerated into relentless street fighting, where progress was measured in metres.
Paulus made a tactical mistake in not concentrating all possible resources to stop traffic on the Volga. Chuikov was totally reliant on the river crossings for reinforcements and resupply of ammunition and food. The Luftwaffe compounded the error by dispersing its bombing attacks over a wide tactical area instead of concentrating almost exclusively on the river crossings and Soviet concentrations on the east bank. Without men and supplies the Russians at Stalingrad could not have held out.
Some writers and historians are given to repeating Soviet propaganda that Chuikov exercised supreme cunning and tactical skill by feeding just sufficient men and supplies into Stalingrad to hold a bridgehead and keep the Germans fighting so they could be sucked into a trap. But in fact Chuikov had no other choice. He was constrained by both the availability of resources, and what he could get across the river without it being destroyed. He was also initially limited by what he could assemble in a narrow bridgehead without creating a bottleneck that would be an easy target for the German bombers. It wasn’t cunning or tactical skill that Chuikov relied upon, but the determination, skill, and courage of his troops. That said, Chuikov conducted an excellent defence, with the use of small units in defence and assault, with specially created kill and defensive zones. The Germans on the other hand were using larger forces that often hampered each other and created larger targets. They had to learn the hard way. Fighting then degenerated into numerous and constant small-unit actions with often just a few men deciding the issue in a small area of intense combat. A lieutenant of the 24th Panzer Division gives a very graphic description of the type of fighting that became the norm:
We have fought during fifteen days for a single house; with mortars, grenades, machine guns and bayonets. Already on the third day 54 German corpses are strewn in the cellars, on the landings and the staircases. The front is a corridor between burnt-out rooms; it is the ceiling between two floors. Help comes from neighbouring houses by fire escapes and chimneys. There is a ceaseless struggle from noon to night. From storey to storey, faces black with sweat we bombard each other with grenades in the middle of explosions, clouds of dust and smoke, heaps of mortar, floods of blood, fragments of furniture and human beings. Ask any soldier what half an hour of hand-to-hand struggle means in such a fight, and imagine Stalingrad; eighty days and eighty nights of hand-to-hand struggles. The street is no longer measured by metres but by corpses …4
At the northern outskirts von Wietersheim, the XIV Panzer Corps commander, was gravely concerned at the losses being sustained by 16th Panzer. He requested that Paulus replace his troops with infantry divisions better suited to close-quarter fighting. Paulus, stressed, exhausted, racked with dysentery, got uncharacteristically angry at what was a reasonable request. The more so as he had been tolerating General von Seydlitz-Kiesbach who was a far more difficult, arrogant and ill-disciplined commander. He arbitrarily dismissed the brave and capable von Wietersheim from his command on the grounds of defeatism. Hitler took this further by dismissing him from the army. Von Wietersheim ended the war as a private soldier in the Volksturm, Germany’s last-ditch home guard militia. Von Seydlitz, however, continued to enjoy Paulus’ confidence, eventually turning traitor after his capture and actively assisting the Russians. Paulus’ judgement of men, like his military judgement, was seriously flawed.
Von Strachwitz was livid at the sheer travesty of the dismissal. He liked and respected von Wietersheim, an excellent panzer leader and Knight’s Cross bearer whom he felt privileged to serve—which for someone of von Strachwitz’s ego was a considerable concession. Not one to keep his feelings buried he went to General Hube to vent his feelings, which would have embarrassed Hube who had been promoted to take von Wietersheim’s place. No doubt however, the good-natured Hube commiserated with von Strachwitz, probably agreeing with the unfairness of the dismissal.
Whatever his feelings about his promotion, Hube would have felt a pang of regret at leaving the division with which he had shared so many hardships and battles. He certainly felt as much affection for his men as they did for him. So it was with genuine sorrow that he made his farewells. He visited every unit in turn, saying goodbye individually to every regimental and battalion commander, while saying farewell to the troops who had served him so well in many grim battles in the past.
His replacement was Major General Günter Angern, a veteran combat officer who had been awarded the Knight’s Cross in 1940. He was a meticulously correct officer, who had genuine warmth and concern for the welfare of his troops. Not as popular as Hube, he was nevertheless a good replacement. Graf von Strachwitz had no trouble working with him, perhaps particularly because Angern had a cavalry background.
On 27 September 16th Panzer, along with 60th Motorised and 39th Infantry Division, was committed to a major attack in the direction of the tractor works. Ferocious street fighting ensued. Concealed Soviet snipers picked men off in all directions. The stubbornly defending Russians had to be dislodged from buildings with sub-machine guns, hand grenades, bayonets and fists. Men fought hand to hand with whatever weapons they could grasp, sharpened entrenching tools being a favourite, but anything that could gouge, club or kill was used. No sooner had the Germans cleared one sector than they were taking fire from the rear as the Russians skilfully infiltrated behind them. There was no let up. The enemy was always close, with unseen snipers taking advantage of the slightest exposure. The men were dirty, unshaven, hollow-eyed and exhausted, their faces etched with stress. Their eyes burned feverishly or were glazed over with mind-numbing exhaustion from the torment of close-quarter combat.
On 29 September two Russian infantry divisions and three brigades attacked the 16th Panzer and 60th Motorised Divisions. The Germans fought back grimly, destroying 72 Russian tanks. So desperate was the situation that Russian soldiers continued to desert to the Germans. Eventually the number of Russians working for 16th Panzer almost equalled the number of Germans fighting.
By early October nearly all of southern Stalingrad was in German hands but at the cost of 40,000 casualties, while the Russians had lost over 80,000 men. The munitions expended were enormous with around 20,000,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition, 750,000 artillery rounds and 500,000 anti-tank shells.5 The casualties and expenditure of resources began to seriously worry Paulus, who expressed his concerns to General Rudolf Schmidt, head of the Army Personnel Office, when he was visiting Paulus’s headquarters. He brightened up considerably when Schmidt told him that Hitler was considering replacing General Jodl, with whom he had just had a fiery argument, with Paulus.
When told of the heavy losses being sustained in the street fighting at Stalingrad, Hitler brushed them aside, emphasising for the first time that the capture of Stalingrad was an urgent necessity, not only for operational but also psychological reasons. As Stalin felt the same way, both dictators were now committed to a fight to the death.
On 14 October Paulus launched his third and final attack to take the city. The 16th Panzer attacked the tractor factory with everything in its arsenal. The ferocity of the assault destroyed the elite Russian 37th Guards Division, splitting the 62nd Army, and advancing 400 metres to take the heavily contested tractor factory and reach the Barrikady factory. By the end of October the Germans took the Red October factory and part of the Barrikady factory where the fighting continued at close quarters without result.
On 13 November Lieutenant Colonel Hyazinth Graf von Strachwitz was awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross, being the award’s 144th recipient. He had little time to enjoy his award however, for on 17 November 16th Panzer advanced on Rynock in two battle groups, attacking from the north and the west. They made some early gains, but heavy Russian defensive fire caused casualties, as the tanks had little room to manoeuvre. The Russians counterattacked with four tanks and infantry, forcing the Germans back. Casualties for the day were heavy, with four officers and 15 men killed and eight officers and 95 men wounded.6
After this intense fighting, 16th Panzer was pulled out of the line to go into reserve for a very necessary refit. All that remained of its fighting strength were 4,000 combat-weary men, which equated to a reinforced battle group or understrength brigade. After it was relieved by the 94th Infantry Division it took up winter quarters near Poteminskaya. During the withdrawal, events overtook it as the Red Army launched a major counteroffensive towards the Don bend.
This strategic offensive, dubbed Operation Uranus, had as its objective the encirclement of Sixth Army by first smashing the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies holding its flanks. Later it destroyed the Italian and Hungarian armies deployed further along the Don toward the northwest. The use of these weak Axis armies on such a large scale in vital roles was symptomatic of Germany’s shortage of manpower and the overreaching of its goals.
The Russians employed a staggering 1,100,000 troops supported by 1,327 aircraft, 1,560 tanks, 4,215 guns, 11,564 mortars and 440 Katyusha rocket launchers for the offensive.7 Most of this force crashed down on the hapless Romanians, which consisted of the Romanian Third Army of 150,000 men under General Dumitrescu, with eight infantry and two cavalry divisions, all of which were below established strength. The troops were under-supplied, under-trained, and underwhelmed about their service in Russia. They were mostly equipped with 37mm guns which were next to useless, and only had a paltry seven 75mm anti-tank guns per division, which were supplied by the Germans after much pleading by General Dumitrescu. The Fourth Romanian Army, under General Constantinescu, was even worse off with only 75,000 men in five infantry and two cavalry divisions, whose fighting spirit and morale equalled Third Army’s, which was close to zero. The sole Romanian armoured division was in reserve, but was only equipped with Czech 38(t) light tanks carrying a measly 37mm gun, which was just capable of making a noise and scaring off some Soviet infantry. The Romanians then, were a debacle waiting to happen.
Under the Russian onslaught the Romanians quickly and understandably collapsed. The Russians struck them on 19 November, and on 23 November their pincers met on the Don to the west of Stalingrad at Kalach. Some 60 Soviet divisions had now encircled 290,000 Germans, Romanians and Russian Hiwis (ancillaries or helpers to the Axis).8
Hans Ulrich Rudel, the ace German Stuka pilot, gave a rather embittered account of the Romanian rout:
The weather is bad, low lying clouds, a light fall of snow, the temperature probably 20 degrees below zero; we fly low. What troops are those coming towards us? We have not gone halfway. Masses in brown uniforms. Are they Russians? No. Romanians. Some of them are even throwing away their rifles in order to be able to run the faster: a shocking sight, we are prepared for the worst. We fly the length of the column heading north, we have now reached our artillery emplacements. The guns are abandoned, not destroyed. Their ammunition lies beside them. We have passed some distance beyond them before we sight the first Soviet troops.
We find all the Romanian positions in front of them deserted. We attack with bombs and gun-fire but how much we use is that when there is no resistance on the ground? … On the return flight we again observe the fleeing Romanians; it is a good thing for them I have run out of ammunition to stop this cowardly rout. They have abandoned everything; their easily defended positions, their heavy artillery, their ammunition dumps; their cowardice is certain to cause a debacle along the whole front.9
The Italian Eighth Army and Hungarian Second Army, both equally bereft of armour and adequate anti-tank weapons, suffered a similar fate. Not that this result was unexpected, as Hitler’s generals had repeatedly warned him of the dangers of having Germany’s Axis allies guarding the front’s extended flanks. Paulus’ response was to order the 14th, 16th and 24th Panzer Divisions to move west toward the Don to try and block the Russians’ drive across the German rear. This move took place on the night of 19/20 November and was a chaotic shambles. The supporting infantry could not be extricated from the fighting in Stalingrad where the Russians had launched an attack to tie them down. All General Angern had to send was a motley collection of rear-echelon troops. In addition there was no fuel available to make the dash west. Von Strachwitz had to beg, even steal the fuel necessary to make the move. Moreover, the panzers were scattered over a wide area and so could only make the move in a piecemeal fashion. The Panzer Graf only had four operational tanks in his immediate vicinity when ordered to deploy.
When the pincers of the Russian Operation Uranus met, they sliced through 16th Panzer, which had been in the process of withdrawing. Trapped inside the encirclement were the divisional headquarters including General Angern, the 79th and the bulk of the 64th Panzer Grenadier Regiments, the artillery regiment and the anti-aircraft battalion. Outside the cauldron were the 16th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 2nd Panzer Regiment, 16th Armoured Engineer Battalion and the 1st Battalion, 64th Panzer Grenadier Regiment. These units were all placed under the command of Colonel Rudolf Sieckenius as a separate battle group. Graf von Strachwitz commanded the armour element.
Rudolf Sieckenius had also been heavily engaged in combat while von Strachwitz was engaging a Soviet tank unit that was attempting a breakthrough. In one instance his force was attacked by a strong infantry force armed with anti-tank rifles, which normally didn’t have a major impact on medium tanks, but posed a real threat in large numbers at close range. Vasily Grossman relates the account of Gromov, a Red anti-tank rifleman at Stalingrad:
When you’ve hit it you see a bright flash on the armour. The shot deafens one terribly, one has to open one’s mouth. I was lying there, I heard shouts: “They’re coming!” My second shot hit the tank. The Germans started screaming terribly. We could hear them clearly. I wasn’t scared, even a little. My spirits soared. At first, there was some smoke then crackling and flames. Evtikpov had hit one vehicle. He hit the hull, and how the Fritzes screamed!10
In late November or possibly early December, von Strachwitz was seriously wounded. At first he refused to be evacuated, preferring to stay with his troops, until firmly ordered to fly out by General Hans Hube, who had been kept apprised by the chief medical officer. His participation in the epic battle of Stalingrad was over. This event saved him from death or imprisonment, although it is possible he may have been evacuated anyway as a specialist in tank warfare, as Hube and others were, in order to save key personnel. Due to serious tank losses there was a forced amalgamation of the 1st and 2nd Panzer Battalions. The 3rd Battalion, also seriously under strength, was placed under the command of Captain Freiheer Freytag von Loringhoven. Between 29 November and 2 December it served as a ready reaction force in the Dimireseke, Nowo and Alexandrovski areas, principally assisting the hard-pressed 44th Infantry Division. Freytag von Loringhoven was later flown out to carry important despatches.11
Meanwhile, at Sixth Army headquarters, General Hube and the other corps commanders were urging Paulus to break out of the encirclement. Paulus, however, still had faith in the Führer, and believed that the relief effort being organised by von Manstein would rescue him. He also fondly believed that the Luftwaffe, despite their generals’ strong assertions to the contrary, would keep his army supplied.
Von Strachwitz and Siechkenius may have been out of the cauldron but the agony for 16th Panzer had still to run its course. On 6 December Lieutenant Mutius, who had supported von Strachwitz’s battalion at the Don with his panzer grenadiers, led an attack on some high ground at Babarkin. His men had no sooner taken it when Russian tanks counterattacked in force. Mutius was severely wounded and his men scattered in all directions.
On 10 December von Manstein launched the much-awaited relief attempt. Hitler was keeping his promise to Paulus, but could not provide the forces strong enough to save Sixth Army. All that was available was the full-strength 6th Panzer Division, the grossly understrength 17th Panzer Division, the 23rd Panzergrenadier Division with its one battalion of tanks, and some next to useless Luftwaffe field divisions. This force just didn’t have the strength to reach Stalingrad, despite almost superhuman efforts to do so. On 23 December von Manstein abandoned the attempt with a heavy heart. The Sixth Army was now doomed. Von Manstein did urge Paulus to break out, but did not categorically order him to. Paulus refused to follow von Manstein’s advice. He would not disobey his Führer. He also knew that he had very few vehicles and very little fuel, but a large number of wounded, all of whom would certainly perish if they fell into the hands of the Reds. He was no Hube, Hausser or even von Reichenau,12 and would have to face the consequences for his blind obedience.
Meanwhile the agony at Stalingrad continued. On 21 December General Hube was awarded the Swords to his Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, becoming the 22nd recipient. He was flown to Hitler’s headquarters so that a grateful Führer could personally present him with the award. Here Hube urged his leader to allow a breakout, but Hitler assuaged his anxieties with confident talk of relief, supplies and ultimate salvation. Hube was not the only veteran officer to be reassured in this manner by Hitler, who had a knack of often convincing his generals, at least while in his presence, against their better judgement. Hitler often quoted impressive-sounding facts and figures, made promises that couldn’t be kept, gave assurances and on occasion, just plain lied. Many generals were convinced that Hitler had a broader, more accurate picture and believed his promises, so Hube’s reaction was far from unusual. Major Gerhard Engel, Hitler’s army ADC, relates in his memoirs how Field Marshal von Kluge went to see Hitler to resign his command if he could not persuade the Führer to alter the Army High Command to create a new Commander-in-Chief for the Eastern Front and remove Keitel. After four hours alone with Hitler he returned depressed and thoughtful. He told Engel, who was with him, “that he had laid all his cards on the table and the Führer had heard him out in silence. He was in agreement with him about Keitel but then had spoken convincingly about situation possibilities, requirements, and appealed to his conscience to the extent that he had not been able to go through with the final move.” Engel finished his memoir note with “It was devastating, but it was always like that”13
Relief or not, 16th Panzer continued to carry out its duty. It had shrunk to a ration strength of 7,000 men, of which only 2,000 were combat troops. On 1 December these were augmented by all non-essential rear-area personnel. The gunners from the heavy battalion were also converted to infantry as their guns no longer had ammunition. The light artillery pieces (75–105mm) were limited to just 16 rounds per day.14 Rations were cut to 200g per day, together with 50g of fat and some horsemeat when available, both of which were put into a watery soup. Despite prodigious efforts the Luftwaffe could not provide the minimum 600 tons that Sixth Army required each day just to function. The maximum it ever supplied was 362 tons, which was just above the 300-ton survival limit, with the average being 120 tons.15 The troops had difficulty surviving on these rations, let alone continuing to fight. They got progressively weaker and apathetic from hunger, and their morale plummeted when it became clear that the hoped for relief force would never arrive.
On Christmas day, the Russians launched a major attack on 16th Panzer’s positions. An 88mm gun located in the front lines destroyed 13 Russian tanks before being blown up by its crew with their last round. The Russians penetrated the division’s front lines taking some high ground at hill 139.7. The Germans quickly counterattacked but were repulsed. Soviet tanks posed a major threat at this time as the anti-tank battalion had only one 50mm gun remaining, its surplus troops acting as infantry.
At the end of December the 94th Infantry Division was disbanded, with its remnants being sent to 16th Panzer as much-needed reinforcements. Along with them, the last levy of supply and headquarters troops, many of whom were NCOs, were turned into an ersatz infantry company of 100 men. Even the severely wounded stayed in the front line, such as Lieutenant Lobbecke, who had lost an arm but continued fighting while his wound slowly putrefied.16
On 9 January the Soviets issued a surrender ultimatum, promising good treatment in exchange for capitulation. Their emissaries used the issuing of the ultimatum to collect information on conditions and defences. When the ultimatum was rejected, the Russians launched a massive assault with five divisions, with 16th Panzer once again being selected for special treatment. On the 11th, with the Reds infiltrating through the thinly held German lines, General Angern ordered a withdrawal to specially prepared positions in the rear. However the Russians, having suffered horrendous losses during their attacks, couldn’t pursue their advantage.
Angern now positioned his artillery directly in the front lines where they could provide direct support by line of sight fire and provide a morale booster for the hard-pressed infantry, who were exhausted and barely hanging on. First Lieutenant Adalbert Holl, who had become a member of 16th Panzer after the disbanding of 94th Infantry Division, recounted how his men were feeling at the time:
There was nothing left of the spirit that inspired us in the past weeks and the élan with which we wanted to conquer this city of Stalin. We performed our duty like virtual machines. We felt somewhat threatened because something unknown was befalling us and we could not quite admit to it. When pressed hard, we fired and fought back like a fatally wounded animal that had been pushed into a corner and defended itself with all its strength.17
General Paulus gave a telling description of conditions to Major Thiel of the Luftwaffe who had been sent to report back on conditions at Gumrak Airfield. Thiel had told Paulus about the major difficulties the Luftwaffe was facing in trying to supply Sixth Army. Paulus’ reply was embittered and reproachful:
If your aircraft cannot land then my army is doomed. Every machine that does so can save the lives of 1,000 men. An air drop is no use at all. Many of the canisters are never found because the men are too weak from hunger and exhaustion to look for them, and we have no fuel to send the transport to collect them. I cannot even withdraw my line a few kilometres because the men would fall out from exhaustion. It is four days since they have had anything to eat. Heavy weapons cannot be withdrawn for lack of petrol and are therefore lost to us. The last horses have been eaten. Can you imagine what it is like to see soldiers fall on an old horse carcass, beat open the head and swallow the brains raw? What should I, as commander-in-chief of an army, say when a simple soldier comes up to me and begs “Herr Generaloberst, can you spare me one piece of bread? Why on earth did the Luftwaffe ever promise to keep us supplied? Who is the man responsible for declaring that it was possible? Had someone told me that it was not possible, I would not hold it against the Luftwaffe. I could have broken out when I was strong enough to do so. Now it is too late.18
Paulus had conveniently forgotten that the Luftwaffe generals had all warned him that supplying his army by air was an impossibility. The sheer scale of the operation with the number of planes and actual flying days available due to the weather meant that the Luftwaffe had little or no chance of meeting Paulus’ daily requirements.
On 18 January General Hans Valentin Hube was wounded. Tough old soldier that he was, he categorically refused to be evacuated. He would stand and die with his men. Hitler, loathe to lose such a capable officer, personally ordered his evacuation but Hube still refused to go. An exasperated Hitler finally sent two security officers to force him onto a plane at gunpoint if necessary. Hube was flown out on a Focke Wulf 200 flown by the experten pilot Lieutenant Hans Gilbot. Soon after this, Hitler promoted Hube to the rank of Colonel General of Panzer Troops, one step below Field Marshal.
For 16th Panzer the situation had grown worse. On 21 January the pocket was split in two, with 16th Panzer trapped in the northern part, and Paulus’ headquarters in the south. All could now see that the struggle was hopeless, yet pride, discipline, and fear of captivity kept them doggedly fighting. The feelings of the men are described by an anti-tank gunner in a letter written to his loved ones at home:
On Tuesday I knocked out two T-34s with my mobile anti-tank gun. Curiosity had lured them behind our lines. It was grand and impressive. Afterwards I drove past the smoking remains. From a hatch there hung a body, head down his feet caught, and his legs burning up to his knees. The body was alive, his mouth moaning. He must have suffered terrible pain, he would have died after a few hours of torture. I shot him, and as I did it, the tears ran down my cheeks. Now I have been crying for three nights about a dead Russian tank driver whose murderer I am. The crosses of Gumrak shake me and so do many other things which my comrades close their eyes to and set their jaws against. I am afraid I’ll never be able to sleep quietly, assuming that I shall ever come back to you, dear ones. My life is a terrible contradiction, a psychological monstrosity.19
The Germans finally withdrew to the western outskirts of Stalingrad, in many cases abandoning their seriously wounded, as the troops lacked the strength to carry them, having barely the energy to struggle through the snow themselves. Moreover there were no field hospitals that could take them. Food came in nightly airdrops, but ammunition was no longer being supplied. The troops had to scavenge what they could, or use captured weapons taken from dead Russians as newly promoted 116th Panzer Division Captain Adalbert Holl recounted, regarding a repulsed Russian attack on 26 January:
Pawellek, Nemetz and two men tried to ascertain how many attackers lay in front and behind us. They also had the task of bringing in all weapons and ammunition from the dead enemy soldiers. When they returned, Pawellek reported: “Eight Russians are lying in the brook area. We brought back four sub-machine-guns with ammunition, four rifles and six hand grenades …”
Nemetz returned shortly after: “Five dead on the slope above us, about 20 to 30 metres from here. We brought in three sub-machine-guns, two rifles, ammunition and four hand grenades, as well as a couple of pieces of bread and a little tobacco.”20
On 31 January the newly promoted Field Marshal Paulus surrendered the southern pocket.21 He refused the Russians’ demand to call for the surrender of the northern pocket or any units still resisting, so the fighting in the north continued. Out of sheer frustration, the Russians launched a massive assault against the hold-outs which was repulsed with heavy losses. However 16th Panzer’s neighbour to the left, the 60th Motorised Division, was overrun with only a lucky few able to surrender. The Russians also effected a deep penetration into 16th Panzer’s right flank, finally reducing the northern pocket to a few hundred metres in depth. The Soviets then infiltrated through the thinly held lines to the rear, where the divisional headquarters staff became directly involved in the fighting. Major Dormann launched a local counterattack but only encountered groups of Germans already surrendering and being marched away. He barely managed to escape, returning alone.
On 2 February the Russians assaulted the divisional command post, overwhelming the last resistance being put up by the division. General Angern managed to slip away, trying to make his way to the tractor works where resistance was still continuing. However there were too many Russians between him and his objective so, accompanied only by his orderly, he disappeared into the icy wastes. The Russians discovered his body a few days later; he had either been shot or had committed suicide.
The agony of the survivors began anew as they were marched off to collection points and prisoner of war camps. The starved, exhausted, emaciated men were marched for some 50 kilometres. Anyone who dropped out was shot. Rear-echelon Russian troops pillaged and robbed the pathetic belongings of those straggling at the rear of the long winding column, shooting anyone who resisted. Typhus broke out at the initial collection camps, decimating the prisoners who now died in their tens of thousands. The survivors were despatched to various slave-labour camps throughout the Soviet Union. Of the 94,000 who marched into captivity only 5,000 returned home, some as late as 1955.
Paulus, disillusioned with Hitler, co-operated with the Russians, actively so after the failure of the 20 July 1944 bomb plot. He had a relatively comfortable captivity, compared to his men, and eventually settled in East Germany. He never saw his wife again. General Seydlitz-Kurzbach went beyond co-operation, turning traitor, broadcasting propaganda and supporting the setting-up of German prisoners of war to undertake missions against their former comrades. These turncoats were given the nickname Seydlitz troops.
Stalingrad was a major but not strategically decisive German defeat. They lost an entire army which—unlike the Russians—they could not afford to have removed from their order of battle. Nevertheless, they had inflicted at least equivalent casualties on the Soviets, and despite their loss of manpower, the Germans could, and did, launch major offensives in the east after Stalingrad, such as at Kharkov, Kursk and in Hungary. Their capacity to wage war offensively and for an extended time was not critically diminished. Nevertheless it was a major psychological turning point in the war. It showed the Russians and the world that the Germans could be badly beaten, that their high commander was not infallible, or their armies invincible. The defeat haunted the consciousness of general and soldier alike. The spectre of Stalingrad hovered over them all throughout the war, influencing their tactics and actions. The loss of men threw the entire nation into genuine mourning, which affected the morale of both soldier and civilian alike. Three days of official mourning was announced on 4 February. The loss of manpower could not be made up, especially as it involved the loss of many seasoned veterans. The failure of the airlift destroyed what was left of Hermann Goering’s reputation.
For the Russians it was a major boost to their morale and confidence, yet the strategic turning point it was not. The turning point had already occurred with the failure of Operation Barbarossa the previous year when the Germans’ gamble on a short war clearly failed. The Red Army had buckled, then held, and struck back. Since then it had continuously grown stronger as the Germans grew proportionally weaker. New reserves from deep in the Soviet interior were drawn upon, filling out the decimated ranks of the frontline units. Equipment, food and clothing began pouring in from the Western Allies while Russia’s own production capacity from factories in the Urals beyond the reach of German bombers increased enormously. Moreover, due to the enormous number of trucks being supplied by the USA, the Soviets could concentrate more on their tank production, which made a decisive difference.
For the Germans it was a case of diminishing returns and insufficient resources to defeat the Soviet Union. Germany was simply not geared to fight a protracted war of attrition, in manpower, fuel, equipment or production capacity. Germany was already stretched in 1941. Its massive victories in 1941 were a testament to its troops’ fighting ability, discipline, courage, superior tactics and combat experience, as well as the ability of its front-line commanders. The Russians made mistakes, but given time they adapted and learnt from them. Yet for all the attributes of the German troops, they could not make up in the long run for the lack of resources. Only by stripping the northern and central Fronts of men and tanks were the Germans able to mount the major offensive in the south, and even then this proved to be insufficient for the expanded goal of taking both Stalingrad and the Caucasus.
The Germans had already shot their bolt during Operation Barbarossa. From 1942 onwards they had only sufficient forces to continue fighting, albeit with some success, but not to win the war.
Despite the grave German defeat at Stalingrad it must be remembered that Sixth Army’s sacrifice on the steppe had averted a more serious one. Had Stalingrad not held out as long as it did after its encirclement, Army Group A in the Caucasus—comprising three German and one Romanian army—would have been cut off and ultimately destroyed, resulting in a much bigger disaster than the loss of Sixth Army at Stalingrad.
Had Paulus surrendered, or Sixth Army been overrun soon after the encirclement, the Soviet besieging forces would have been free to move against von Kleist’s Army Group, seize Rostov and bottle him up in the Caucasus. As it was, von Kleist’s men just managed to escape, albeit leaving behind Seventeenth Army on Hitler’s orders to hold the Crimea, where it would later be destroyed. Von Kleist’s masterly withdrawal was only made possible by the courage of Sixth Army’s men in Stalingrad. Writers, and historians like to point to a major battle and label it strategically decisive. It is more glamorous and interesting than a protracted series of battles, events, or logistical and manpower failures such as Operation Barbarossa. An epic battle like Stalingrad with all its drama, pathos, heroism and losses certainly stirred the imagination and attracted every label that could be placed upon it. Barbarossa on the other hand was too vast in scope, encompassing numerous battles, events and personalities to be truly evocative. Yet its failure decided the war.
NOTES
1. V. E. Tarrant, Stalingrad (Leo Cooper, UK).
2. Ibid.
3. Alan Clark, Barbarossa (Macmillan, UK, 1985), p. 238.
4. Adalbert Holl (trans. Jason D. Mark and Neil Page), An Infantryman in Stalingrad (Leaping Horseman Books, Sydney, Australia, 2005).
5. Tarrant, Stalingrad.
6. Holl, An Infantryman in Stalingrad.
7. Tarrant, Stalingrad.
8. Antony Beevor, Stalingrad (Penguin Books, UK, 1999).
9. Hans Ulrich Rudel (trans. Lynton Hudson), Stuka Pilot (Euphorion, Dublin, 1952), pp.63–64.
10. Vasily Grossman (ed. & trans. Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova), A Writer at War With the Red Army 1941–1945 (The Harvill Press, UK, 2005).
11. Beevor, Stalingrad.
12. During the following February, SS General Paul Hausser deliberately disobeyed Hitler’s orders and abandoned Kharkov in order to save his SS Panzer Corps from destruction.
13. Major General Gerhard Engel, At the Heart of the Reich (Greenhill Books, UK) p.149.
14. Hans Schaufler, Panzer Warfare in the East (Stackpole Books, USA).
15. An Infantryman in Stalingrad
16. Beevor, Stalingrad.
17. Holl, An Infantryman in Stalingrad.
18. Tarrant, Stalingrad, p.206.
19. Tarrant, Stalingrad, pp.201–202.
20. Holl, An Infantryman in Stalingrad, pp.224–225.
21. Hitler promoted Paulus on the premise that a German field marshal never surrenders, and as a reward for Paulus’ anticipated suicide. He was very upset when Paulus decided to live and went into captivity instead.