By January 1943, the German Sixth Army had been trapped inside Stalingrad for more than two months. Soviet forces had encircled the city the previous November during Operation Uranus, and a German relief attempt in December, led by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, had failed to break through. Inside the pocket, roughly a quarter of a million men were slowly running out of food, ammunition, and any realistic hope of rescue. Hitler, however, had refused to consider withdrawal, declaring, “I won’t leave the Volga.
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On 8 January, Soviet commander Konstantin Rokossovsky sent an offer of surrender to General Friedrich Paulus, the Sixth Army’s commander. The terms were relatively lenient: prisoners would receive normal rations, the wounded and sick would be treated, and all men could keep their badges of rank, decorations, and personal belongings. Rokossovsky’s note was blunt about the situation: “Your troops are desperate. They are suffering from hunger, sickness, and cold.
Hard frosts, cold winds, and blizzards lie ahead. Your situation is hopeless and any further resistance senseless. ”
Paulus, under orders from Hitler, refused. By 24 January, the army’s position had collapsed beyond recovery.
Paulus radioed Hitler: “Troops without ammunition or food, effective command no longer possible. 18,000 wounded without any supplies or dressings or drugs. Further defense senseless, collapse inevitable. Army requests immediate permission to surrender in order to save lives of remaining troops.
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Hitler’s response was absolute: “Surrender is forbidden. Sixth Army will hold their positions to the last man and the last round, and by their heroic endurance will make an unforgettable contribution towards the establishment of a defensive front and the salvation of the Western world. ”
On 30 January, Paulus signaled again: “Final collapse cannot be delayed more than 24 hours. ” The next night, he sent his final message: “The Sixth Army, true to their oath and conscious of the lofty importance of their mission, have held their position to the last man and the last round for Führer and Fatherland until the end.
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A few hours later, at 7:45 p. m. , the radio operator in the Sixth Army’s headquarters, located in the basement of the Univermag department store in Stalingrad, sent one last unauthorized transmission: “The Russians are at the door of our bunker. We are destroying our equipment.
CL. ” The signal marked the end of the station’s transmission. Soviet troops soon peered into the dark cellar where the Sixth Army staff were hiding. A junior officer shouted at them to surrender.
General Arthur Schmidt agreed, and he, Paulus, and the remaining staff were taken prisoner. Hitler was overcome with fury, and his anger centered entirely on Paulus. He insisted that the general should have taken his own life rather than surrender. “They have surrendered there, formally and absolutely.
Otherwise, they would have closed ranks, formed a hedgehog, and shot themselves with their last bullet. The man should have shot himself just as the old commanders who threw themselves on their swords when they saw that the cause was lost. Even Varus gave his slave the order, ‘Now kill me. ’”
That last reference pointed to Publius Quinctilius Varus, the Roman general who lost three legions to Germanic tribes at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD.
Varus had fallen on his sword rather than face capture, execution, and dishonor. Hitler did not stop there. He raged about what would come next: “You have to imagine he’ll be brought to Moscow, and imagine that rat trap there. There he will sign anything.
He’ll make confessions, make proclamations, you’ll see. They will now walk down the slope of spiritual bankruptcy to its lowest depths. You’ll see, it won’t be a week before Seidlitz and Schmidt and even Paulus are talking over the radio. They are going to be put in the Lubyanka, and their rats there will eat them.
How can one be so cowardly? I don’t understand it. ”
Hitler’s prediction proved accurate. By July 1944, Paulus, Schmidt, and another captured general, Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach, had become leaders of the National Committee for a Free Germany, an organization established in the Soviet Union to encourage anti-Nazi sentiment and prepare for a change in government.
Paulus and Seydlitz both spoke on Radio Moscow, urging the German army to depose Hitler. Still, Hitler’s contempt for Paulus did not cool. He told his staff, “In peacetime Germany about 18,000 or 20,000 people a year chose to commit suicide even without being in such a position. Here is a man who sees 50,000 or 60,000 of his soldiers die defending themselves bravely to the end.
How can he surrender himself to the Bolsheviks? ”
Paulus, for his part, had no intention of obliging. He later declared, “I have no intention of shooting myself for this Bohemian corporal. ”
The German public never learned any of this.
On 3 February, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the German Armed Forces High Command, released a statement: “The Battle of Stalingrad has ended. True to their oath to the fight to the last breath, the Sixth Army under the exemplary leadership of Field Marshal Paulus has been overcome by the superiority of the enemy and by the unfavorable circumstances confronting our forces. ”
The reality was different.
The Sixth Army had been destroyed, hundreds of thousands of its men were dead, and its commander was preparing to turn against the Führer who had ordered him to die.