Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

Following the loss of Pitomnik and the abandonment of Gumrak, Stalingradski is the last operational airfield still open to the Sixth Army. If it, too, were to fall to the Russians, the last thread of a connection to the outside world would be cut. Admittedly, there is talk of a runway being built in the city of Stalingrad itself, and army commanders have sent in construction units to do the preparatory earth-moving operations. But that’s only to boost the troops’ morale, in the full knowledge that such a plan is in fact wholly unfeasible.

Stalingradski’s ‘Flight Control’ is situated in a bunker in a gorge just off the main road. Breuer pushes his way through the half-open door into the room, which is full to bursting. His euphoric mood of earlier has not subsided. The first things that meet his ear are the clatter of a typewriter and the raised voice of a medical officer.

‘No, I’m telling you, you’re wasting your time! If you don’t have a valid sick pass there’s nothing to be done. Get out! Jesus Christ Almighty, we’re not running a bloody shop here!’

Breuer pushes forward and hands over his card. The doctor gives it a cursory look.

‘There’s no authorization from the army here,’ he says.

Breuer has to lean on the table to stop himself from fainting. It’s like someone has slammed a door in his face. ‘But I thought… I was told—’

‘Then you were told wrong!’ snaps the MO. And without more ado, he addresses all the waiting men. ‘Right, hand me your cards! I’ve got to go over and see the army surgeon anyhow. Maybe he’ll sign them off.’

Surrender his sick pass? Breuer wavers between fear and hope. The doctor loses his temper.

‘For God’s sake, do you want to give me that or not?! It’s all the same to me!’

Breuer reluctantly parts with the valuable, or possibly worthless, card. He and the others make their way outside. With some effort, he climbs back up the slope out of the gorge and crosses the busy road, which is lined with hedges. His thoughts have become a blur by now.

A few hundred metres beyond the road is the edge of the airfield, an expanse of white that stretches into the distance. The green-grey fuselages of three or four transport planes are clearly visible, along with several grey trucks and various knots of people milling around and being shepherded by a handful of black-clothed figures. A plane is slowly lifting off the runway. At least they’re still flying out of here, then. And the prospects for those due to depart are looking good. In these overcast conditions, there’s no danger of encountering enemy fighters, so in a couple of hours’ time the passengers in the plane that’s just taken off will be touching down safe and sound at the airfield at Shakhty or Stalino. [1] Stalino – former name of the city of Donetsk, Ukraine.

With a mad haste, quite uncalled for given the circumstances, Breuer races ahead towards the aerodrome. Keeping pace alongside him, with long, loping strides, is a fellow officer.

‘This stupid countersignature rigmarole,’ he grumbles. ‘Total bloody shambles! Wonder if we’ll even see that MO again? Of course, a bastard like him who has to stay here come what may doesn’t have the slightest interest in… Anyhow, I reckon we should keep our beady eyes on him… Look out for one another, what?’

He is a major, tall and slim, and with a rather rakish air.

His cap is set at a jaunty angle above black earmuffs. His left arm is in splints and heavily bandaged. A camouflage jacket is draped across his shoulders like a hussar’s fur cape.

A keen easterly wind has got up, and is blowing powdery snow across the airfield. It seems that Stalingradski is only a temporary airstrip. A really quite restricted area of relative flatness, but pretty uneven for all that, with some treacherous dips in the surface and lots of small man-made hummocks dotted about. Breuer can’t make out what they are: piles of corpses, no doubt, or perhaps discarded equipment. As testament to the hidden dangers here, several wrecked aircraft are scattered around the airfield’s perimeter. These are the planes that Breuer spotted from the road. The tail of one is sticking out of the ravine that lies at the airfield’s southern end. Nearby, an ill-defined black mass of something is moving, jelly-like. As Breuer draws closer, the details become clearer. A mass of people is milling about there. People? Distorted reflections of human misery, more like – sick and wounded soldiers and men gone to rack and ruin, crippled, hobbling around using sticks, propping themselves up on home-made crutches or leaning on one another for support. These had once been men – Germans, Romanians, soldiers and officers alike, as revealed by their tattered uniforms. And now? Now they have become a bellowing, seething, hate-filled mob. Nor does the melee show any signs of abating; instead, it forms a self-contained mass, swirling round some unseen focal point, as everyone fights to ensure they get the elusive, illusory ‘first seat on the plane’. Standing to one side is the flight dispatch officer, his legs apart like a ringmaster, tense and ready to spring forward at a moment’s notice. The pistol in his hand guarantees he is shown respect. Everyone knows he’ll open fire without hesitation if the violence and chaos spill over from the jostling mass. His voice is hoarse from shouting; it sounds like rusty tin.

‘For the last time – if you lot don’t fall in line this instant, I’ll pull the plug on the whole show! That’s right – I’ll radio all the incoming pilots to return to base, I’m telling you!’

Various figures are circling like jackals around the periphery of the group. These are the wounded, starving and freezing men who couldn’t get to see a doctor anywhere and who haven’t been fortunate enough to secure a sick pass home. Yet they still live in hope. And bodies are lying in the snow, not all of them dead. Some are still crawling around while others are trying to get back up. One man is lying there with his kitbag under his head. He’s not moving a muscle. His eyes are all skew-whiff, like a broken doll’s. His mouth is hanging open and out of it, from deep within his chest, there comes a gurgling, sobbing, unintelligible scream of anguish…

Breuer holds his hand in front of his face. Only one eye, he thinks crazily. How good that only one eye is witnessing all this! He realizes that he must fight here, fight for his life, ruthlessly and brutally, that he must turn into an animal before he can become a human being again. And yet he feels like he’s paralysed. So that’s that! Hadn’t he always suspected it would come to this? Had he ever seriously imagined… Exhausted, he slumps down in the lee of a wrecked aircraft fuselage to get out of the biting wind. The major sits down beside him, fishes out a pack of cigarettes and offers one to Breuer.

‘Sheer lunacy, eh? Stuffing these planes full of chaps like that!’ he witters. ‘I mean to say – I’m wounded myself,’ he continues, cheerfully waving his bandaged arm, ‘but let’s face it: what the devil are they going to do with cripples like that back home? There’s no question of returning them to front-line duties. And just think of the effect blokes like that will have on people’s morale. Don’t get me wrong; I’m only saying this from the point of view of how to wage a war rationally… but priority really ought to be given to general staff officers, and competent commanders, and specialists and healthy infantrymen… They’re always going on about being ruthless but when the chips are down, it’s a different story…’

‘Yes, yes,’ mutters Breuer distractedly. His attention has been caught by a droning noise that’s growing louder by the minute. A dark shape emerges from the uniform grey blanket of cloud; as it descends and gets larger, its markings become clearer. At a low altitude, it executes a careful turn over the airfield to check out the terrain before coming in to a bumpy landing and taxiing to the end of the strip.