4
German prisoners of war in Stalingrad, January 1943
General Field Marshal Paulus was taken prisoner by the Soviets on January 31, 1943. The same day German soldiers in the southern pocket laid down their weapons. Two days later the northern pocket, commanded by Karl Strecker,1 finally surrendered. As tens of thousands of Germans soldiers were marched off to captivity, the Soviet intelligence service got to work. On February 5 Captain Zayonchkovsky and his colleagues, Majors Koltynin and Lerenman, began to interrogate soldiers and officers captured in the northern pocket. After the war, Zayonchkovsky submitted the reports of the interrogations, along with other documents of his activities on the Stalingrad front, to Isaak Mints’s Historical Commission. Besides tying in almost seamlessly with events in the department store basement and in the military staff of General Shumilov, the reports are a thrilling read. The statements of named German prisoners immediately after their capture reveal their state of mind and show how the Soviets treated the prisoners and what information they sought from them.
Shortly after the battle of Stalingrad ended, Zayonchkovsky, by then a major, delivered a lecture to military intelligence staff about the purpose of “political interrogation of prisoners of war.”2 As head instructor, Zayonchkovsky was responsible for training the new intelligence staff added in February and March 1943 to cope with the growing tide of prisoners. The primary task of the interrogating officer, he stressed to the audience, consisted in identifying the “political-moral” state of the Wehrmacht soldiers. What did the prisoners think about the war? Did they still believe in German victory? How disciplined were the troops? To what extent was fascist ideology anchored in the Wehrmacht? The political officers of the Red Army believed that the enemy troops, like their own soldiers, were guided by ideological convictions that fostered strong military morale. The aim of political interrogation was to uncover the cracks in the soldiers’ loyalty to National Socialism, cracks that the military intelligence then had to exploit on the battlefield to bring down the political and moral scaffolding of the enemy. Because Zayonchkovsky and his staff specialized in enemy propaganda, the interrogations also had to contain detailed questions about the influence of Soviet messages on German soldiers. The Soviets wanted to learn which techniques worked and which needed to be improved. (Several soldiers told them that the initial leaflets dropped by the Red Army came off as primitive and caused much amusement. One soldier said he did not understand why the Soviets called the Germans “fascists.”)
In his lecture Zayonchkovsky detailed the different forms of questioning. He argued that individual interrogation—one interrogator and one subject—was best, as prisoners were more likely to talk when alone than in the presence of fellow soldiers or superiors. Interrogators must not fraternize with the prisoners lest it damage the Soviet officers’ “honor and dignity.” Only in exceptional cases, such as when interrogating high-ranking officers who held vital information, was it advisable to adopt a more relaxed style over a cup of tea. To make a strong impression the interrogating officers had to show the prisoners how much they knew about them, such as by dropping information about the prisoner’s unit and the name of his divisional commander. Each question had to be carefully considered. For instance, German soldiers asked whether they belonged to the Nazi party could not be expected to answer truthfully. Instead, the question should be, “When did you join the Nazi party?”
Almost all the following interrogations took place between February 5 and 9 in the staff headquarters of the 66th Army located in Dubovka, thirty miles north of Stalingrad. The prisoners provided information about the final weeks in the Stalingrad pocket and the circumstances that led their units to surrender. They made statements about the Wehrmacht’s combat effectiveness and the strength of the Red Army. The reports contain a wealth of previously unknown information on the final days of the battle, such as the different ways Generals Strecker and Arno von Lenski3dealt with their units as they showed signs of disintegrating. They reveal the horrendous living conditions of Russian prisoners in German captivity and the terror felt by the penned-in soldiers of the 6th Army as the artillery barrages and air attacks began.
Judging by the reports, the Germans who continued to fight in the face of hunger, exhaustion, and mass death did so out of a mixture of spite, obedience, and ideological conviction. An especially strong motivating factor was fear of capture. In this respect, the Soviet information campaign during the first weeks of the encirclement was ineffective: Wehrmacht soldiers dismissed the images of well-fed and well-clothed German soldiers in Soviet prison camps as empty propaganda. During the final weeks, the Soviets began to give German prisoners tobacco and bread and allow them to return to their units, a tactic that apparently convinced many Wehrmacht soldiers that capture was not tantamount to death.
Despite these interesting details, the interrogators were unable to arrive at a reliable picture of the German mood in the final days of the Stalingrad battle for the simple reason that the general situation and the specific interrogation protocol did not encourage reliable statements. The testimony by the German Senior Lieutenant Otto Conrady shed light on the problem. An intelligence officer in the 389th Infantry Division, Conrady noted that the Soviet prisoners he questioned in the summer and fall of 1942 stated that they fought only under threat of violence and received nothing to eat for days at a time. But his divisional commander rejected the information as nonsense: the strong resistance the 389th Infantry Division encountered in Stalingrad belied the statements of the Red Army prisoners. We can thus assume that all prisoners, Soviet and German, told their interrogating officers, at least to some extent, what they wanted to hear.
All the more disconcerting, then, are the many expressions of pro-Nazi sentiment recorded in the reports. For instance, general staff officer Herrmann Lüben believed that thanks to Nazi conditioning German soldiers would still win the war, but he worried that the “blood purity” of the German Volk had been jeopardized, and put the main share of the blame for Germany’s military failures in Stalingrad on its—non-Aryan—Italian and Romanian allies. The testimony of platoon leader Ernst Eichhorn (24th Panzer Division) leaves a particularly lasting impression. Perhaps to ingratiate himself with the Russians, Eichhorn expressed his surprise at the good treatment received by German prisoners and recounted how his men wondered why the Germans and Russians were even fighting. In the next sentence—the last of the interrogation report—Eichhorn added that for him and the other German officers it was clear who was really at fault for the war: the Jews, who had taken over everywhere save for Germany. That Lerenman, the interrogating officer, was Jewish appears to have exceeded his powers of imagination.
REPORT
on the political interrogation of POW Senior Lieutenant Max Hütler
Dubovka, February 6, 1943
Interrogated by Major Koltynin, head of 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army, and
Quartermaster-Technician 2nd Class Gersh, interpreter, 99th Rifle Division4
Max Hütler,5 senior lieutenant, adjutant in the 544th Infantry Regiment, 389th Infantry Division. German. Age: 34. Native of Westphalia. Married. Member of the National Socialist party. Forestry researcher, instructor at the University of Göttingen. Reserve officer. Home address: Göttingen University.
The prisoner stated: “From the very beginning of the Stalingrad operation it was clear to me—and not only me but nearly all of the officers—that our high command was taking a big risk by driving in such an enormous wedge. The Russians were obviously going to try to cut through this wedge, surround our forces at its tip, and move in behind us. But we thought our commanders knew what they were doing. We thought they had enough reserves and would be able to hold our flanks. I still can’t understand why they didn’t bring more men to the flanks. We had reserves, plenty of them. The whole thing confuses me. When your army broke through our defenses at the end of November 1942, people started to panic. But we didn’t know who exactly was spreading this panic. Soldiers weren’t the only ones losing their heads. A lot of officers were too, especially the commanders of large units.
“By Christmas we understood the utter hopelessness of our situation. There wasn’t any help and there wasn’t going to be any. Each of us realized this, but we were afraid to admit it. We knew that we were doomed. But despite this most of us didn’t even think of surrendering. We’d been tasked with holding back as many Russian troops as possible, troops that would otherwise be sent toward the Caucasus and Rostov. That’s what we told the men. They knew what was going to happen to them, and, as you know, it was a small number of worthless men who laid down their arms and surrendered without being ordered to. The main corps of soldiers had been thoroughly instilled with a sense of duty, and they were prepared to give up their lives. Those were the men who held everything together. We weren’t bothered by the small groups. They didn’t present any danger to us.
“You say that every soldier is still a man, and as such he puts great value on his life and holds on to the idea of returning to his homeland, to his family, his wife, his children. That’s true. But still the homeland takes precedence. Each of us is able to sacrifice himself for his homeland. This has been drilled into all of our soldiers. When they were in the encirclement, all of them knew they still had to do their duty, and they did.
“During the two months that we were surrounded there wasn’t a single order related to discipline or increasing our monitoring of the regular soldiers. The only thing I know of was on January 27 or 28, 1943—I don’t remember the exact date—when General Strecker issued an order stating: (1) Immediately open fire on anyone who moves away from his unit and toward the enemy; (2) anyone who takes supplies for himself from airdrops will be tried by court-martial; (3) anyone who is insubordinate or refuses to follow orders will be tried by court-martial.
“So why did we surrender? First of all, the main force that was with Field Marshal Paulus surrendered on January 30, 1943 [sic], so continued resistance was senseless. Our group wasn’t able to draw in enough Russian forces to justify the sacrifice. We did our job for as long as we could, and if we could have held your armies back for another two or three weeks, then we wouldn’t have put down our weapons, we’d have kept fighting. Second, we had so many wounded that they impaired our ability to fight. They were packed into every other building. All of them would have been killed by artillery fire if we’d resisted any longer.
“How do I judge the current military situation in Germany? Germany is in the middle of a very difficult crisis, but this isn’t a defeat. There’s still another 2 million or so who can be drafted. But if your offensive continues at the same pace for another two months, then our crisis might turn into defeat.”
The prisoner also said that one of the signs by which you could determine who would win was Turkey’s entry into the war. Turkey would join the side of the victors, but only when it was absolutely clear who the victors would be.6
“I was a National Socialist before the army, and now I’m a soldier. There aren’t any National Socialists in the army, just soldiers.
“I was a company commander from April to October 1942. What you’ve been saying about the brutal treatment of Russian POWs—this is the first I’ve heard of it.7 There was nothing like that in either my company or my regiment. There may be exceptional cases, but they’d have been just that: exceptions. It’s prohibited. It’s the same thing with the local populations. We have orders that make violence against the local population an arrestable offense. We’re likewise prohibited from taking valuables from civilians—or any of their things, for that matter. Sometimes we’re given permission to take foodstuffs. The packages with boots, dresses, and so on, that some of us sent back to Germany—those were things that had been found in destroyed or burned-out buildings.
“Russian soldiers are pretty good soldiers. They’re much better at defending than attacking. And here, where they defend in small groups, they do a lot better than they do as a large mass. You have good snipers.” Major Koltynin, Head of 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army Quartermaster-Technician 2nd Class Gersh, Interpreter, 99th Rifle Division
REPORT
on the political interrogation of POW Sergeant Helmut Pist, 21st Panzer Grenadier Regiment, 24st Panzer Division
Dubovka, February 9, 1943
Interrogated by Captain Zayonchkovsky, senior instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Pist, Helmut. Born on January 11, 1916, in Schwarzenau (Province of Posen). Graduated from the gymnasium. Profession: agronomist. Lutheran. German. Member of the Hitler Youth. Drafted in 1937. Home address: Krefeld am Rhein, Prinz Fridrich Karl Str., 139.
When asked about the state of his unit during the final days of the encirclement, Helmut Pist stated the following:
“In early January the regiments in our division no longer existed as such. Individual groups were created that went by the names of the officers in charge. For example, a group was made up out of the 21st and 26th Regiments, and it was commanded by Colonel Brendahl. They also set up these so-called alarm groups. Those groups were different sizes. The one I was in, for example, had fifty men. We were led by Lieutenant Hermanns, and we were located in Orlovka. Morale was low. Many were criticizing the government, blaming it for giving up on us. Our food was getting worse by the day. By around January 20 we were getting fifty grams of bread per day. The air-dropped food supplies were being taken by whoever found them, despite strict orders and the threat of being shot. So there was very uneven food distribution in the units. Discipline was worsening every day, and there was more and more talk of surrender. On around January 25 Lieutenant Koars from divisional HQ told us that General von Lenski, our divisional commander, had issued an order giving freedom of action to the commanders of all units—that is, he was letting them surrender. But that order was canceled a day later.
“Your leaflets didn’t have much success among the men before the encirclement, but then the situation changed, especially in January, when the men read them with real eagerness. We were actually looking for the leaflets you were dropping from the air, the ones with maps showing the situation on the front.
“Those last days in Stalingrad were horrible: thousands of dead bodies, and the wounded men dying in the streets because the hospitals were overcrowded, and on top of that we were taking heavy fire from your artillery and aircraft. The surrender wasn’t organized. Our bunker was fifty meters from our divisional HQ, but even though we were so close to them, we only learned about the surrender after the Russians had already showed up. We came out of our bunker and put down our weapons. War in Russia is not what it is in the west. During the French campaign in 1940, our squadron was always out in front, and only two of our guys got killed.”
Major Koltynin, Head of the 7th Section Political Department, 66th Army Captain Zayonchkovsky, Senior instructor, 7th Section Political Department, 66th Army
REPORT
on the political interrogation of the POW Ernst Eichhorn, cavalry officer in the 9th Company, 24th Panzer Regiment, 24th Panzer Division
Dubovka, February 5, 1943
Interrogated by Major Lerenman, instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Ernst Eichhorn. Home address: Regensburg an der Donau, Luitpoldstrasse 11a. Field Post no. 11468.
German. In the army since 1935. Not a member of the National Socialist party. On the Russian front since June 1941. Completed cavalry school in Hanover. Born in 1902. Campaigned in Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France. Not married.
One reason the surrounded German forces in Stalingrad surrendered was that the front was closing in. Maneuvering was impossible. A massive force was concentrated in this small area with no airfield. That resulted in enormous losses from artillery and airplanes. Another reason was the bad state of the food and fuel supplies. In the final days the men were getting one hundred grams of bread, a bit of horsemeat, forty grams of lard, a daily portion of broth (two liters), and four cigarettes.
They were down to a small number of artillery shells, but there was plenty of ammunition for the infantry. Tanks were turned into pillboxes. Because of that the whole regiment was operating as an infantry unit.
The officers of the 24th Panzer Division understood that the encircled units were in an extremely complicated and difficult situation, but they didn’t consider it hopeless.
The order to surrender came through divisional command. It was given verbally, and then envoys were sent out, and units from the 24th Division laid down their arms. But the order to surrender came as a surprise to everyone. Up to the very end, most of the officers were still hoping to get help from the outside. The men never questioned their orders, both during the encirclement and when they were told to surrender. That’s how the German soldier is trained: to do something only when he’s ordered to. Communication with the outside world was maintained right up until Russian units took the airfield at Pitomnik. There was no postal service after that.
The idea was widespread in the German army—among both men and officers—that being captured by the Russians meant poor treatment, torture, and death. The men and officers had all read the Russian leaflets where it said that prisoners were treated well. There were some with photographs that showed the lives of the prisoners in Russia. But no one believed it, they figured it was just propaganda. During the advance many of them had seen the bodies of men who’d been shot in the head and so on. That convinced us that the Russians were shooting prisoners.
All of the officers in the 24th Panzer Regiment think highly of the Russian artillery. They’re accurate and don’t scrimp on shells. If there hadn’t been any artillery at Stalingrad, and it was just infantry attacking the surrounded forces, then the Germans could have easily fought them off and resisted longer. The Russian infantry doesn’t deserve any specific praise. They lack the spirit for an effective offensive. The Russians were a lot better in 1942 than at the beginning of the war. But the German fighter planes are better than the Russian ones. There are a lot of young, inexperienced pilots in the Russian air force. The tanks are very effective. The T-34 is an excellent piece of machinery. Russian tanks are very well armed. And their crews are very highly trained.
The reason for the successful offensive against the surrounded German army was the simultaneity of the attacks from the north and south, and later from the west. On top of that, the Romanian units, which were positioned on the upper Don, ran away. The success of the Russian assault was also facilitated by a certain amount of panicking in the German units. We began destroying stores of food and military equipment in the first days of the encirclement.8 That complicated the situation for the surrounded forces.
During our advance on Stalingrad there was talk among the officers that the Russians were counting on the winter, that they were going to time their own offensive for the winter. The German commanders thought the Russians were too weak and downplayed the likelihood of a Russian offensive. The German commanders thought they’d have already won by the time winter came. The officers remembered that this wasn’t the first time that their general strategic plans had been upended. It wasn’t clear then—though it’s obvious now—that the plan was unrealistic. You just can’t count on simultaneous offensives on Leningrad and Stalingrad while also planning to take the Caucasus. It’s too much. The German commanders were planning to take Stalingrad and then move down the Volga to Astrakhan. But they never took Stalingrad. To get to Astrakhan they had to try to cross the Kalmyk Steppe,9 and that entailed increasing losses for the German army.
If the Red Army continues its offensive as it is doing now, especially if they take Rostov and Kharkov, then that will be of great significance to the outcome of the war.10 Holding on to Kharkov and Rostov is the most important thing for the German army.
A second front in Europe is inconceivable. German forces are on standby in northern France, and the coast is fortified. An attack from Spain became impossible once the Germans took southern France. Nor could American and English forces land in Italy. The German navy wouldn’t allow it. To land in Europe, you’d have to plan extensively, but still it couldn’t happen.
“Germany has enough reserve forces and materials,” said the prisoner. “We can fight on as much as we like.”
The Russian leaflets often made the men and officers laugh. Russian propaganda hasn’t really taken into account the particular psychology of the German soldier, his unique sense of discipline. “So, for example, I saw one leaflet that called on soldiers to kill their officers because they were better fed and didn’t have to fight,” said the prisoner. “Another leaflet told them to kill all the fascists and join the Russians. First of all, officers and soldiers eat the same food. And we don’t understand the word ‘fascist,’ which makes us think of the system of government in Italy.”
During the surrender, German officers were worried about their own futures. People said that, if you were going to surrender, give yourself up to the Americans, the British, the French. It’s perfectly safe being a prisoner with them.
The prisoner asked: “Why are you going to so much trouble over us? We weren’t expecting such good treatment, especially from Russian officers. If your goal is to encourage German officers to surrender, then that’s very clever. Being allowed to send letters home was very effective in that regard. Now our soldiers say: ‘As prisoners we can see that the Russians aren’t bad people. Who knows why this war got started, why there’s so much bloodshed.’
“To us officers it’s clear that the war came about because of the Jews, who seized leadership roles in the governments of all nations except for Germany.”
Major Koltynin, Head of 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Major Lerenman, Instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
REPORT
on the political interrogation of POW Lieutenant Herrmann Strotmann, adjutant, 1st Battalion, 79th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, 16th Panzer Division
February 9, 1943
Interrogated by Captain Zayonchkovsky, senior instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Strotmann, Herrmann. German. Catholic. Not married. Born May 18, 1918, in Münster. Bank employee. Home address: Münster, Westfalen, Hermannstrasse 50.
He was drafted as a regular soldier in 1938. In 1941 he was made an officer. He was a company commander in the 79th Regiment from September 5 and throughout October 1942, and since September he has been an adjutant in the 1st Battalion under Major Wota.
“During the fighting to the north of Stalingrad (south of the village of Yerzovka), from September to November, the 79th Regiment lost between 80 and 90 percent of its men. Reinforcements were constantly being brought from the rear, but that entailed a significant drop in quality. [ . . . ] Most of our losses were the result of your mortars, which we called the böse Waffe.”11
When asked about the state of his unit in the encirclement, Strotmann stated the following: “The Stalingrad operation was risky. At first we thought we’d take Stalingrad in five weeks. That didn’t work out, and we couldn’t fall back because that would have left the Caucasus group wide open. Our commanders’ great mistake was attacking in late autumn, which meant we weren’t able to dig in and get ready for winter on the front lines. You took advantage of this both last year and this year. If we’d stopped at the Don, then we’d have been able to make the right preparations. Then this catastrophe wouldn’t have taken place. The main reason for our surrender: lack of food, men, shells, and also the impossibility of it all—it was physically impossible for us to continue fighting. The quality of our soldiers was very low (most of them had just been brought in in from the rear). We were starving, and most of us were frostbitten. Even the officers were so exhausted and hungry they could barely stand up. There’s a limit to what a man can take, and we reached that limit on February 2. We surrendered. The surrender was spontaneous. At 6:00 A.M. I was told that Russian tanks were at our bunker. I cried, got out of the bunker and laid down my weapon.”
Moving on to a question about our propaganda, Strotmann said that the quality of our leaflets had significantly improved as of late. “At the very beginning,” stated the lieutenant, “they were quite primitive. For example, you reported that we’d lost 4,100 guns at Stalingrad, but there weren’t that many guns in the whole army.”
Lieutenant Strotmann concluded with the following: “Every soldier believes in victory, but to tell you the truth, if America enters the war, then we’ll have a hard time winning.”
Major Koltynin, Head of 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Captain Zayonchkovsky, Senior instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
[Zayonchkovsky’s signature]
REPORT
on the political interrogation of POW Sergeant Wilhelm Vugeler, 3rd Company, 79th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, 16th Panzer Division
Dubovka, February 9, 1943
Interrogated by Captain Zayonchkovsky, senior instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Vugeler, Wilhelm. German. Lutheran. Born on March 1, 1916, in Nienburg/Weser. Member of the National Socialist party since 1934. Completed public school. Profession: commerce. Home address: Nienburg/Weser bei Hannover, Quellhorststrasse 10.
“There were eighty to a hundred men in our company when we got surrounded, and we were losing fifteen to twenty every day. Reinforcements were constantly coming in from the rear. Our situation improved a bit after December 30 because we built dugouts and were taking fewer casualties. I was transferred to the rear on January 4. In mid-January the remnants of the 16th Panzer Division were assigned to the 24th Panzer Division. All that was left of the 16th Panzer Division was the rear units.
“The men were feeling worse every day. Until January we were hoping to get help, but then in January, when we started retreating, our morale plummeted, and by the time we’d retreated right into the city, most of the soldiers understood the hopelessness of our situation. Still, the men were terrified of being captured by the Russians.
“I’ve read the Russian leaflets, and even listened to your radio broadcasts during the Christmas holidays. We were at the railroad northwest of Orlovka. All the men listened carefully to your broadcasts. Many of us started doubting that our officers were really telling us the truth. But our counterpropaganda was effective, so we didn’t believe you entirely.
“On February 1, I was wounded near the Tractor factory and wound up in a field hospital. On February 3, at 3:30 A.M. (Berlin time), the chief physician announced that the hospital was being handed over to the Russians in two hours. So I was captured.”
Major Koltynin, Head of 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Captain Zayonchkovsky, Senior instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
REPORT
on the political interrogation of POW Sergeant Heinz Hühnel, 12th Company, 554th Regiment, 389th Infantry Division
Army Headquarters
Interrogated by Major Lerenman, instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Heinz Hühnel. Home address: _____. Field Post no. 40886.
Born May 27, 1908. Education: Eight years of public school, Commercial High School. Married. Member of the National Socialist party since 1933.
Throughout the interrogation, Hühnel, a member of the National Socialist party since 1933, tried to convince the interrogator that he had become a new man after being taken prisoner. He claimed to have broken with Hitler’s party. He explained that he wanted to study our state and ideological systems, that he wished to return to Germany as this new man or even remain in Russia to advance new ideas, to lead people toward communist ideology. He stated that he used to be far removed from politics. He fell under the influence of the mass psychosis of the National Socialist party, which, in addition to pressure from his wife’s family, led him to become a member. Now, after being a party member and seeing the true nature of National Socialism in Germany, he concluded that Hitler’s fascism was an ideology of conquest and enslavement.
What the Germans said about communism and Russia turned out to be completely wrong. Seeing what Russia was really like during the war [several words illegible] situation.
When they were first surrounded, the men hoped they would break out quickly. They expected help, but some soldiers understood even then that the situation was serious. They were thinking that they’d have to spend the winter in the encirclement before breaking out in March or April. The men’s spirits were falling by the day. They turned in to dull, automatic task-doers, completely stupefied.
Few even considered the possibility of running away because they were certain that being captured meant being shot. The men read the Russian leaflets, but few believed them.
Hühnel talked about a German soldier who returned from Russian captivity. He said that at around 8:00 P.M. on January 8 a certain Holzapfel appeared in the company’s bunker. He said he’d been a prisoner of the Russians for twenty-four hours. He’d been fed, given a lot of bread, offered tobacco. Holzapfel said he’d only seen German prisoners being treated well, that he saw how well dressed the Russian soldiers were, how well armed they were. Among those present was the commander, Sergeant Polte. He cut him off, saying that it was all propaganda, that they’d fed him on purpose, that it wasn’t really like that for prisoners. Polte brought Holzapfel to the battalion commander, Captain Bitermen. No one saw Holzapfel after that. Who knows where he disappeared to.
Three days before the Holzapfel incident there was talk among the soldiers that someone had come back from Russian captivity saying their prisoners were being treated well.
After Holzapfel’s disappearance people were saying that there must be some truth to his story. The prisoner stated: “I told the men to calm down. Let’s see what happens. Maybe we’ll be surrendering. Don’t be afraid, just do what you’re told.” On January 10, when units of the Red Army were beginning an attack, Hünel apparently ordered everyone to get dressed and head out: “I had seven men and two machine guns at my disposal. We were supposed to defend ourselves—and we could have—but when the Russians came, I ordered my men to put their hands up. Six of the seven did so, and the last one ran to the telephone to tell the company commander what was happening. He was killed by the approaching Russians, and the rest gave themselves up.”
All the men are ready to surrender, but they’ve got to have an order. Very few of them will surrender without an order from their superiors. They’ve grown so dull and weak that they’ve lost the ability to think for themselves. Another reason German soldiers don’t surrender is because they consider it cowardice and a betrayal of their comrades. But if they’re ordered to surrender, then whoever gave the order takes on the responsibility.
Supervision had to be stepped up because of the recent decline in morale. Everything possible was being done to reassure the men. The officers were always saying: Just wait, it’s all going to get better soon. At the beginning of January all the German newspapers published Göring’s speech where he said that everyone in the encirclement at Stalingrad would be going on leave and getting some sort of package from the Führer. He said that food was coming from the Ukraine and that the soldiers had nothing to worry about.
The men read that speech, and many of them laughed bitterly. All of them had spent the summer fighting in units that had taken heavy losses. Promises of relief came and went without anything happening. The units in the encirclement had been promised help before, but none had come. That made this speech impossible to believe.
The men had recently begun to notice that those who showed dissatisfaction or a “harmful disposition” would be monitored. The Nazis volunteered to keep an eye on other soldiers because they wanted to gain favor through espionage. No one was ordered to spy on other soldiers, but the Nazis considered it their duty.
The soldiers often tell one another that the officers live for themselves, that they’re more interested in medals than the affairs of their company or the fate of their men.
Major Koltylin, Head of the 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Major Lerenman, Instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
REPORT
on the political interrogation of POW Sergeant Karl-Heinz Pütz, 64th Regiment, captured on January 10 by units of the 343rd Rifle Division
January 11, 1943
Interviewed by Captain Zayonchkovsky, senior instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Born on May 15, 1924, in Cologne. Home address: Cologne, Nippes, Escherstrasse 21. Father: Electrician. Completed primary and secondary school. German. Catholic.
He joined the army in September 1941 and was placed in a reserve motorcycle battalion stationed in Iserlohn. He worked as the battalion’s small-arms armorer. He arrived on the Russian front in September 1942 in the 64th Regiment of the 16th Panzer Division.
When the Russians were surrounded, the prisoner was in an independent detachment that was formed mostly out of units from the 16th Panzer Division. The detachment included two battalions of soldiers from the 64th and 79th Regiments and the 16th Motorcycle Battalion, and also one battalion from the 544th Regiment of the 389th Division.
The first battalion, which is where Pütz was, had forty-five to fifty men. There were about as many men in the second battalion. The infantry battalion was around 150–200 men. Captain Dornemann was in charge of the detachment. The first battalion had only one officer, Lieutenant Schlippa, who’d flown in straight from Germany on January 1. According to the prisoner, cargo planes are still bringing in ammunition, food, fuel, and also replacement officers.
The detachment occupied the area from Hill 137.8 to the southern slopes of Hill 139.7.
Food: The men are currently getting two hundred grams of bread per day—four hundred grams every second day—forty grams of canned meat, and cold soup without the least bit of fat (the horses have all been eaten). Vitamin tablets are also given out daily. During his time in the encirclement the prisoner once received eighty grams of butter. Three hundred grams of chocolate were issued on Christmas, and one hundred grams for New Year’s. “The men are starving,” said the prisoner. “What they gave us today for seven men is roughly equal to the daily rations of an entire battalion.”
The heating situation is also very bad: wood is brought in once a week, but only enough for one day, to heat a stove two or three times.
The men use timber from unoccupied bunkers for heating. But there’s not much of that. A lot of people have frostbite. For example, twenty-five to thirty men in the battalion got frostbite on December 25. Now they’re all with the baggage train since the hospital is full.
Morale is low. Most of them men think the situation is hopeless, though the officers do try to reassure them, saying that help is on the way, that the main forces of the German army are no more than forty kilometers from the encirclement.
The men are afraid of being captured by the Russians because the officers have convinced them they’ll be shot. Pütz learned the truth of the matter from the soldier Holzapfel, who visited him in his bunker on the night of January 9. Pütz was on duty at the time and saw Holzapfel cross over from the Russian side. Holzapfel came into the bunker all excited, and he started telling them right away about the good conditions in Russian captivity, and then he took some bread out from his pocket and shared it around. There were seven men in the bunker, along with a sergeant from the infantry battalion that Holzapfel belonged to.
The sergeant asked Holzapfel to come with him to the baggage train. The next night another soldier told him: “That redhead Holz will be shot for betraying his country.” The soldiers sympathized with Holzapfel and blamed him only for not being careful enough.
Regarding the circumstances of his own capture, Pütz said the following: “On January 10, when the attacking Russians were coming right up to our bunker, the sergeant told us that resistance was futile and that we had to surrender. When we put our hands up, we started taking fire from the other bunkers. I got hit, and my comrade Private 1st Class Hilbeck was killed.”
Captain Zayonchkovsky
[Signature]
REPORT
on the political interrogation of POW Major Herrmann Lüben, deputy chief of staff and chief of logistics, 389th Panzer Division
Dubovka, February 5, 1943
Interrogated by Major Lerenman, instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Major Herrmann Lüben. Born in 1908. In the army since 1939. Graduated from the General Staff Academy in 1940. Home address: Deutsch-Eylau, Hindenburgstrasse 32.
The prisoner worked for the German Ministry of War, after which, according to him, he took part in the design and construction of military fortifications in the Netherlands (after the German occupation). He was in France. He participated in the campaigns against Poland, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and he was involved in the disbanding of the French army. While working for the general staff, Lüben took part in and even directed the formation of new military units.
As part of his duties, Major Lüben rotated through a diverse range of officer circles in the German army.
During his interrogation the prisoner said that, because of the blows struck by the Red Army against the German war machine, the top brass were trying even harder to align their officer corps with the National Socialist party. With that in mind, they were propagandizing the theory that it was the policies of the National Socialist party which were responsible for the victories of the German army. And for the same reason the older military leaders, who were sympathetic to the political opposition, were being replaced by generals who were clear supporters of Hitler.
The prisoner said that recently, in light of the failure of the German army’s strategic plans in Russia, there is now a pressing need to merge the officer corps with the leadership of the National Socialist party. [ . . . ]
From the moment Hitler and his government took power they had the support of the vast majority of the officer corps. For a time the German army’s military successes in Europe increased Hitler’s authority. But the war with Russia—the collapse of their reckless plans to march on Moscow, to break through to Rostov and Stalingrad—has significantly undermined Hitler’s prestige. [ . . . ]
An idea has been circulating among the officers that there are favorable and unfavorable seasons for Germany; that is, many believe that Germany can and will be victorious in a summer campaign but that winter favors the Red Army.
The prisoner confirmed that the officer corps held such a view of the high command’s strategic plans, but that they did not go so far as to express their disagreements openly. Many of the generals, including General Brauchitsch,12 opposed the plan to advance on Rostov and Stalingrad, but they expressed their disagreement only by suggesting alternative plans. All discussion of the matter stopped when they received their orders. But among the other officers criticism of the risks involved in taking Stalingrad was heard all the more strongly. Describing the situation on the fronts and his own outlook on the war, the prisoner stated: “The defeat at Stalingrad and the Red Army’s advances to the west and southwest have come as a heavy blow to the German army, but this isn’t enough for us to start talking about a real turning point at the front, or about the beginnings of a German defeat. If the Red Army manages to take back Rostov and Kharkov, then that would be a strong indicator of a turning point. Then you might begin to say that the fortunes of war have turned against the German army.” The prisoner concluded: “But it’s hard to believe that the Red Army could manage to take those cities.”
During his interrogation Major Lüben said that it was wrong to think that Germany has exhausted its manpower or reached its limit. Because of the policy of using foreign workers and POWs in its industries, Germany can call up 10 or perhaps 12 million men, counting both men who of military age and those who have until now been granted exemption. Also, the German army can still bring in large numbers of men from the hospitals.
The prisoner nevertheless stated that productivity is low among foreign workers and POWs who are forced to work. And there is also the problem of blood purity. There are special laws that prohibit these groups from associating with the rest of the population, but the preservation of blood purity is still precarious, and this has become a problem. The next thing that gave the prisoner hope of a favorable outcome to the war was his trust in the unwavering discipline of the German army. Despite obvious tactical and strategic miscalculations, the level of discipline in the Germany army—according to the prisoner—gives them the possibility of later offensive operations when the time is right.
The main reason for all their misfortune, he thinks, is the weakness of their allied armies. The tragedy of the Italian army is that their junior officers have not been properly trained and assigned to the right positions. The educational system in the Italian army does not encourage, but rather discourages the formation of junior officers who will play a decisive role on the battlefield. The Romanians make good soldiers, you can get things done with them. But before the war their officers spent their time in cafés doing business of their own. They weren’t training their men, which is why the Romanian army is seriously flawed. “Yes, it’s too bad we have to work with such allies,” concluded Lüben. He accounted for the increasing numbers of Germans who were surrendering by saying that they have been let down by their allies, and he denied any lack of discipline in the German army. [ . . . ]
Concerning relations with the populations of countries occupied by Germany, the prisoner said the following: “In France there have been a number of occasions of people shooting at German soldiers in the streets, but we don’t expect any uprising in France. The French have always been a frivolous people, and now they’ve learned nothing from their defeat. They just sing and dance as they did before.”
In response to the suggestion that the prisoner might only have seen life in France from the window of a café or German restaurant, he said that he was giving his own impressions and that he didn’t know the feelings of the general masses. He also came across displays of ill will toward the Germans in Belgium and the Netherlands. He said that it had to do with people in commerce and industry whose businesses were disrupted when the Belgian and Dutch colonies were seized.
German soldiers and officers thought bad things about Russian captivity not only because surrender is considered cowardice and treason, but also because very little is known about how prisoners are actually treated in Russia. If POWs were able to write home, then people would think better of them, even in the army. That would dispel all the rumors that are circulating about being taken prisoner in Russia.
Major Koltylin, Head of the 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Major Lerenman, Instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
REPORT
on the political interrogation of Senior Lieutenant Otto Conrady, chief of intelligence, 389th Infantry Division
Dubovka, February 7, 1943
Interrogated by Captain Zayonchkovsky, senior instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Senior Lieutenant Otto Conrady. Born March 13, 1904, in Berlin. Father: police officer. German. Catholic. Graduated from the law faculty of the University of Berlin in 1926. Married, four children. Has recently worked as a senior prosecutor in Hamm (Westfalen). Home address: Hamm Westfalen, Ostenallee 93.
He was drafted into the army on August 26, 1939. He was in the reserves from December 12, 1939, until November 1940, when he was reactivated. Since July 1940 he has been working as the chief of intelligence for the 389th Infantry Division.
The intelligence unit at a divisional headquarters consists of the chief, O-3 (an aide), two translators, one draftsman, and two clerks (the last three are enlisted), as well as one sergeant major.
When asked about his division’s situation during the final days of the encirclement, Lieutenant Conrady said the following: “From mid-January we knew our situation was hopeless, but we kept up the defense because our mission was to keep these Russian armies at Stalingrad so they couldn’t take part in other offensives. It was a difficult sacrifice, but we had to do this for our country. Lately we were completely out of artillery shells and mortars. We had enough rifle and machine-gun ammunition. The food situation was awful: one hundred grams of bread per day, about one hundred grams of canned meat, some soup.
“After Field Marshal Paulus surrendered on January 31 there was absolutely no point in us continuing to resist. There wasn’t any surrender order in our division. Everything happened on its own (to a certain extent). Ten days before the surrender our headquarters was spread out over three locations. The intelligence unit was south of the Tractor factory, near the 305th Infantry Division’s main medical station. At around 7:00 A.M. (Berlin time) three Russian tanks approached the building we were in, and we surrendered. I don’t know what the situation was in other divisions. After surrendering, we were taken to Orlovka, and on the way we got robbed by Russian soldiers, who took everything we had. To be fair, the Russian officers forbade this, but they couldn’t keep track of everyone. What can I say? A la guèrre comme a la guèrre. War is war.”
Moving on to his evaluation of the Stalingrad operation, Conrady said that, even at the beginning, many officers thought it was rather risky. The flanks of the group moving on Stalingrad were exposed. This was okay at the beginning of the operation because they were expected to take Stalingrad extremely quickly before moving northward on the Ilovlin—[illegible]—Volga line, thereby creating a single front from the Volga to the Don and farther west. The Russians’ stubborn defense of Stalingrad created another situation that eventually brought them to ruin. [ . . . ]
When he was describing the strengths of our Russian army, Lieutenant Conrady praised our generals highly, particularly Marshall of the Soviet Union Zhukov, who led the operations in the south.
“You learned a lot during the war and turned out to be excellent students.” Later, when he described the strength of the Red Army’s resistance, he said: “Red Army units have put up a stubborn resistance, but the bravest opponent we encountered was in August, when we were fighting on the Don at Dobrinskaya. It was the Krasnodar Officer School (Krasnodar Military Academy—Captain Zayonchkovsky). They fought like lions. When we had captured about a hundred of them, our divisional commander, General Janeke,13 lined them up and said that he had seldom seen such brave soldiers.” In his descriptions of the individual forces, Lieutenant Conrady said that the Russian artillery and mortars were very good, but that our air force was weaker than theirs: “Your air force did us very little harm, even recently it hasn’t caused much damage.”
When asked about how much the intelligence unit and the divisions knew about the forces they were up against, Conrady stated: “We were always in a rather awkward position: we obtained our basic information from prisoners and defectors. Since June 1942 we’ve had about thirty thousand of them, 95 percent of whom testified to there being strong anti-Soviet sentiments in the army: the soldiers only fought out of fear, there was a famine, and soldiers in the army would go without food for four or five days. That gave us the impression that your army was on the verge of collapse. On the other hand, we saw the stubborn resistance by Red Army forces. What was this about? I still can’t account for it. I often found myself in the awkward situation of presenting transcripts of prisoner interrogations to the general. Several times he said: ‘What sort of nonsense are you feeding me? Don’t you see these Red Army units are putting up a fierce resistance?’”
Moving on to the question of propaganda among enemy forces, Lieutenant Conrady said that this was undertaken by a special department in the army intelligence unit. This department of propaganda printed and distributed leaflets, and they also used two or three vehicle-mounted mobile radios. This department was staffed by officers, a few translators, and a few sergeants and other NCOs. When asked about the effectiveness of our own propaganda, Lieutenant Conrady said: “Your propaganda is not very effective because it influences only the morally unstable units, and even during the encirclement our men were entirely under the control of their commanders, right up to the last days. We had some who deserted and went to your side, but they were only isolated cases. I think your leaflets had the greatest influence, and as for your radio broadcasts, I’d imagine that they were not very effective. As far as I know, no one listened to them.
“We knew that that you had recently been sending over a lot of prisoners. That of course is the most effective method. After questioning them, we usually moved the prisoners you sent us to other units on other sections of the front.”
To conclude, Lieutenant Conrady was asked about the activities of the propaganda companies. The propaganda companies, Conrady said, are attached to each army. They number between 100 and 120 men. They do the following: publish the army newspaper, for which there is a special editorial team and print shop; photograph combat scenes to send to the rear and also shoot film to send to the rear (they would have as many as fifteen photographers). They also make audio recordings of men and officers telling stories of individual episodes, as well as voice recordings of people talking about various events from life at the front (there were up to ten speakers). The propaganda companies almost never work with active units on the front. It’s only when a unit is brought back to recuperate that the propaganda companies show films, hold different kinds of lectures, and also organize appearances by cabaret acts brought in from Germany.
Major Koltylin, Head of the 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Captain Zayonchkovsky, Senior instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
REPORT
on the political interrogation of POW Bredahl, Waldemar, interpreter, 389th Infantry Division
Dubovka, February 6, 1943
Interrogated by Captain Zayonchkovsky, senior instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Bredahl, Waldemar. Born in 1904 in St. Petersburg.
Lutheran. Not married. His father was an engineer who owned a stone-planing factory in St. Petersburg. He studied at the St. Petersburg High School. In 1918 he moved to Estonia with his parents, where he lived until 1940. In 1940 he settled in Germany (Posen). Profession: sales representative, worked for the Untech [?] company in Posen. Drafted on October 2, 1942. Arrived at the front on November 4, 1942, as an interpreter for the 389th Infantry Regiment’s prisoner collection point.
When asked about their disposition in the last days of the encirclement, Bredahl said: “On January 22 we fell back to Stalingrad, and most of the officers could see that further resistance was useless and would only result in a purposeless loss of life. Among themselves the officers said this openly and were even surprised that their commanders hadn’t begun negotiating a surrender. Toward the end that was all they talked about. As for the men, they didn’t know the real situation, so they kept hoping we’d get help. The main reason that we surrendered was that we’d exhausted all our resources, and also that our situation was hopeless because we couldn’t count on getting help from anywhere. On February 1 the headquarters commandant Captain Stegner called for me and ordered me, the interpreter, to go out with a white flag to announce that this building was a field hospital and would offer no resistance. On February 2 at around 8:00 A.M. there was a cry: ‘Translator, come on out, there’s three Russian tanks at the door.’ The Russian tank crews started taking our weapons and watches right away.”
“As for discipline,” Bredahl stated, “I don’t know of many times when it broke down, though it did decline in the final days before the surrender. For example, I saw some soldiers who’d been sent to the front lines show up just an hour later back at the command post. Nor did they follow subsequent commands to go back to the trenches.”
When asked about the Red Army, Bredahl said: “Your artillery is very effective, and your mortars are good too. As for the air force, it’s not as strong as ours. First of all, your airplanes are scared of our fighters, which often shoot them down, and, second, they rarely hit their targets, though lately they’ve been able to feel more at home since our antiaircraft artillery hasn’t been operating. Regarding the Red Army’s commanders, the opinion circulating among our officers is this: the Russians learned how to fight from us, the Germans, and now they can fight pretty well.”
When he spoke about the condition of Russian POWs, Bredahl testified that on January 13 his divisional command issued an order that called for two prisoners to be shot for every one that ran away. That order came in response to a rapid rise in the number of escapees in January. According to Bredahl, the order was not carried out. “Your POWs had tough conditions. They weren’t getting any bread at all recently, but before the encirclement they were getting rations of 370 grams of bread and horse soup.”
Major Lerenman, instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Captain Zayonchkovsky, senior instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
[Zayonchkovsky’s signature]