Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

‘Do you reckon the situation up there could get out of hand, then?’ asked Captain Endrigkeit. Breuer shrugged his shoulders.

‘Unold’s really worried, especially because there’s no proper liaison with the Romanians or the Panzer Corps. Our combat group on Hill 218 is prepared for anything, at any rate. Colonel Lunitz put up a hedgehog defence overnight using 8.8-centimetre flak with lighter flak in between. No tank’s going to come near that, even under cover of darkness.’

‘Come along, my dear Lieutenant, a couple of tanks breaking through our lines is nothing new for us. They’ll trundle about there for a few days, causing trouble. Then their fuel will run out and we’ll smoke ’em out.’

Breuer took off his jacket.

‘Please don’t hold this against me, Captain,’ he said, turning to Endrigkeit, shaking his hand as the latter was on his way out, ‘but I’m dog-tired.’

‘Oh well, have some sweet dreams about the Rembrandt film, then,’ the captain replied as he pulled on his sheepskin jerkin. ‘That’ll at least make up a bit for not being able to show it!’

It’s dead of night and pitch-black. A motorbike roars into the village on the road from Manoylin. Its headlamp rakes the fences and cottage walls with its bright glare.

‘Halt! Password!’

The bike skids to an abrupt halt, topples over, and its headlight goes out. The rider picks himself up and dashes up to the sentry.

‘Is this where the Staff HQ is?’ he pants, out of breath.

‘This is where operational headquarters are,’ the sentry answers mistrustfully. ‘Who are you, then?’ He can’t make anything out in the sudden darkness. But the unknown rider has already rushed past him and disappeared into the house he’s guarding. The duty clerk leaps up from his chair and stares at this late interloper, who stands propped against the door frame gasping for breath and seemingly in danger of collapsing at any moment. He’s a young sergeant, with no coat or helmet, dishevelled and caked in filth. His lank hair is plastered to his forehead, and he is bleeding from a gaping head wound.

‘The chief of staff,’ he wheezes, ‘I must speak to the chief of staff!’

Captain Engelhard, who is still up and working at that hour, sticks his head round the door of his office.

‘What’s going on here?’

‘The Russians, Lieutenant, sir, the Russians!’ the man puffs, and at this point he really does collapse. Engelhard is just quick enough to catch him as he falls and help him over to a chair.

‘Just sit there and catch your breath for a minute, man,’ he says, pouring the exhausted man a cognac. Weakly, the man lifts the glass to his lips with trembling hands and, replenished, downs a second glassful straight after. Slowly he calms down to the point where he’s able to impart some intelligible news. By this time, they have been joined by Unold, who has thrown on a greatcoat over his silk pyjamas.

‘Where have you come from, then?’ he asks the man.

‘From Manoylin, Lieutenant Colonel, sir. The Russians are already in Manoylin!’ Engelhard and Unold exchange glances.

‘In Manoylin?’ the lieutenant colonel exclaims. ‘But surely that’s just not possible!’

Captain Engelhard gestures that everyone should try to remain calm and collected.

‘Just tell us what happened, step by step,’ he says.

Still groping for words, the sergeant begins to tell his story.

‘We’re lying in bed, totally unsuspecting… Suddenly, there’s a massive bang, and the whole roof comes crashing down on our heads… and the place is on fire… First thing I do is run to the window and climb out into the open! There, all hell has broken loose. Half the village in flames. Explosions all around, everyone running about like crazy. In the midst of all this, Russian tanks… they were firing into the houses… Our horses from the veterinary hospital were racing past in blind terror… some of them hadn’t made it out of the blazing stables. They were screaming… literally screaming… It was terrible.’

Then the man shrinks back into his shell again. A third cognac helps him rally once more.

‘Roughly how many tanks were there?’ asks Unold. The sergeant thinks for a while before answering.

‘Six, eight maybe… possibly as many as twenty,’ he replies uncertainly. ‘Those I could make out were all T-34s.’

‘With infantry support?’

‘Yes, infantry too!’

‘About how many?’

‘I couldn’t say. They all had machine-pistols, at any rate.’

‘So there we have it,’ says the lieutenant colonel resignedly. Engelhard takes the sergeant – who by this stage is barely conscious, his head wound beginning to bleed heavily again – into a side room.

‘Try and get some shut-eye. You can stay here tonight, we might still need your help. I’ll have a doctor come over and bind that wound for you. And then tomorrow we’ll see how things stand.’

Unold, meanwhile, has unrolled a map and is leaning over it. He is very pale and his eyes are darting uneasily this way and that. Only now is the full enormity of what he has just heard sinking in.

‘Good God, just look at this! Manoylin’s almost thirty kilometres behind our front line. That’s a terrible breach they’ve made in our defensive line! How could something like that have happened? We won’t ever be able to plug a gap like that!’

‘The man’s clearly suffering from a panic attack,’ Engelhard chips in. ‘Besides, people’s senses are always exaggerated at night. It’s probably only a handful of tanks that have broken through with a few machine-gunners riding shotgun on them, and they’re just out to stir up trouble behind our lines.’

The lieutenant colonel shakes his head. ‘No, I don’t buy that, Engelhard. No, no, some dreadful cock-up’s happened here.’ He reaches for a ruler.

‘It’s about fifteen kilometres from Manoylin to here. And a clear road… With nothing between here and there!’ He looks up, pallid as death. ‘If they swing to the east, they’ll be here within half an hour. And here in the western sector, we’d be first in the line of fire! Alert all the staff officers immediately, and tell regional military command what’s going on. It’s imperative we organize a makeshift local defence as soon as we can!’

The general alarm woke Breuer from a deep sleep. He had no idea what was happening, but guessed that something major must be going down at Staff HQ and knew from experience that it was best to give Unold a wide berth in such circumstances. So he decided to go over to the communications hut. There was always something new to be learned there, and besides it would give him the chance to ascertain at first hand whether the intelligence staff officer’s report from the previous evening had already been sent to the Corps.

In the room of the head of communications, he ran across Lieutenant Wiese.

‘Wiese – good heavens, what are you doing here?’ he asked, delighted and surprised at the same time, as he shook his colleague warmly by the hand.

‘Why the surprise, Breuer?’ smiled the lieutenant. ‘I was made head of this department as of yesterday! Didn’t you know?’

‘So, you’re the new HOC? said Breuer regretfully ‘That’s a pity… a real pity… Please don’t get me wrong, my dear fellow,’ he added quickly when he saw the wounded expression on Wiese’s face, ‘of course, I’m very happy for you. Thing is, I’d been working on Unold and had got him to the stage where he was ready and willing to transfer you to the general staff as an intelligence officer. That role would have been right up your street, too… But now nothing’ll come of it. Shame, a real shame!’