Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

The light was already fading. A Romanian brought in a steaming cauldron with a huge, meatless bone sticking out of it. The others immediately cheered up. With a hoarse cry of joy, they all crowded round the pot, served themselves and then sat cradling mess tins and plates and eagerly slurping down the warm, meaty broth. Breuer’s gaze was fixed on the lieutenant, who’d slept undisturbed through all the kerfuffle. In his mind’s eye, he could still see the florid face he knew so well of old, glowing with enthusiasm after one of their heated debates. What a terrible change there’d been since then! The poor lad’s world must have simply imploded when he saw the truth stripped of the veil of illusion…

What was it that the corporal had also said, though? That it was better not to be all alone at times like this? But what help were people? You could be lonely even in a crowd. Breuer felt alone, quite alone…

Sonderführer Fröhlich has been roaming around the city for two days now. He’s separated from his comrades. He’s not in search of peace and quiet, he’s looking for a fight. He wants to engage in a large-scale, heroic battle. The Alcazar [3] The Alcazar – in a speech on 30 January 1943 in the Sports Palace in Berlin, Hitler made the following statement on Stalingrad: ‘Every German will one day speak in solemn awe of this battle, and will recall that, in spite of everything, the foundation of Germany’s victory was laid here. They will speak of a Langemarck of daring, an Alcazar of tenacity , a Narvik of courage, and a Stalingrad of sacrifice.’ The allusion was to the defence of the Alcazar in Toledo by Franco’s Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War. all over again! The Führer’s miracle would act as a call to arms to worthy warriors. But Fröhlich never encounters them. All he finds are helpless, nervous superiors yelling at exhausted officers and men, artillery fire from out of the blue, and general disintegration. It’s no longer a question of grim hand-to-hand combat and ‘seeing the whites of the enemy’s eyes’. And looming over everything is this terrible hunger.

Yesterday he hooked up with a captain who’d been trying to find his way back to his division to fight again, with eight other men from his battalion. But in the meantime the battalion had got cut off and was stuck in the northern sector of the Cauldron. And the task force he’d been sent to join instead…

‘You want to go into combat? Fine,’ the colonel he’d spoken to had told him, ‘but I don’t have any food for you or your men. You’ll have to fend for yourselves.’

Fröhlich certainly had fended for himself. He’d filched a can of fish (though not the last one!) and half a loaf of army bread from the captain and vanished into the night. Hunger is a bad business. You can’t be a hero with hunger gnawing at your vitals. Now at least he’s over the worst of it. He fetched up with a flak battery, all well-fed, well-equipped lads. And they had food to spare, thank goodness. They’re stationed on the outskirts of Stalingrad, protecting the town from the west. Their captain, a square-bashing type, decided to let Fröhlich stay. He can’t stand special officers, but when all’s said and done a machine-pistol’s not to be sneezed at. Weapons are in short supply.

The flak-battery captain has billeted himself in a wooden hut with civilians, after turfing out a couple of soldiers who’d been living there. When he came in they were sitting there, with no weapons, grinding coffee and muttering something about frozen feet. He turned them loose but only in exchange for half their supply of coffee. All sorts of riff-raff were washing about the place, it seemed!

There’s an occasional burst of gunfire. But on the whole it’s quiet. Somewhere up ahead there’s rumoured to be a front. Confusing reports come from the regional Staff HQ, which is located in a flying school. So for the time being all they can do is wait, eat and kill time.

Suddenly the door opens and two men walk in, wearing fur hats and felt boots. The captain gives a start and reaches for his pistol. ‘Soldiers?’ ‘Nyet, nyet!’ The two civilians disappear. ‘Dammit, though,’ says the captain, ‘what a stink they’ve left behind!’ It’s clear that Russians are starting to infiltrate the city.

From the darkness, another person stumbles through the door, a rifle slung over his shoulder. A Russian! He’s lost his way. They relieve him of his gun and send him on his way. ‘The whites of the enemy’s eyes!’ Ha!

‘What are you planning to do?’ Fröhlich asks the captain. He’d pictured the last stand of the Sixth Army quite differently.

‘The top brass are still attempting to issue orders,’ replies the captain. ‘But when that dries up, we’re out of here. I’ve got a lorry waiting, loaded with a fortnight’s supplies. We’ll get all the men in and head west. If we make it through, well and good. And if we don’t, there’s nothing lost.’

Fröhlich asks if he can come along, but the captain refuses.

‘You’ve got more of a chance with your Russian!’ he tells him. He doesn’t like special officers.

In the morning, the corporal comes in.

‘We’ve got him at last, Captain! The bastard who’s been stealing from us the whole time!’

Two of the flak gunners drag in a scruffy-looking man. His eyes are deeply sunken and he’s smeared with filth. His parchment-like face is fringed with a shaggy growth of beard an inch or so long. His eyes dart about fearfully. The captain looks him up and down, and his gaze comes to rest on the shoulders of his ragged coat. The epaulettes have been torn off. A few light threads can still be seen poking out of the seams.

‘You’re an officer?’ shouts the captain. ‘And yet you come round here nicking stuff?’

He strides up to the tramp-like figure and tears open his greatcoat. He’s wearing a brown waist belt.

‘Your pay-book!’

A trembling hand fishes in a pocket for the grubby book. The captain leafs through it. ‘So, you’re a lieutenant! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, man, disgracing the Officer Corps like this?’ The soldiers standing around grin maliciously.

‘I don’t know,’ mumbles the man, picking nervously at his face. ‘I’m so confused. I was hungry…’

The captain gives him a frosty look.

‘I hope you realize what’s expected of you now!’ he says, handing the man back his pistol.

‘I’ll give you five minutes. Then…’

The scruffy man nods silently. The men take him out, their faces suffused with sneaky pleasure at the lieutenant’s misfortune. Fucking officers! ‘He donned his coat of many colours and thought himself better than his brothers.’ Good that they’d caught one of the bastards for once!

‘Put him in the bunker over there!’ the captain calls after them. ‘No more than five minutes, you hear me? Marvellous, isn’t it?’ he says, turning to the Sonderführer. ‘A German officer stealing! Absolute bloody disgrace!’

Fröhlich can’t find any words. Presently, one of the men returns.

‘Captain, sir, nothing’s happened yet!’

‘Right, then, give him a helping hand!’ the captain tells the man. Fröhlich comes over to the table, picks up the pay-book and opens it at the first page.

‘NCO,’ he reads. And below, bordered in black, is the man’s service record: ‘1 October 1939: promoted to corporal.’ Then on the following line: ‘1 November 1942: promoted to lieutenant.’ Finally, beneath this information, there is an extravagant signature: ‘Günther Harras’…

The man comes back.

‘It’s done!’ he grins.

‘Good,’ says the captain.

With some effort, Breuer climbed up through an icy gorge behind the Romanians, crossed a railway line and crawled between goods wagons. It turned out to be a long way to the Romanian staff headquarters. He’d spent an uncomfortable night, with his head resting on all his belongings and his pistol readily to hand. Their little stock of food was on the wane by now. Maybe he and the others would be able to find accommodation with the staff of the Romanian cavalry division, where the affable First Lieutenant Schulz was acting as liaison officer. At least they could give it a go. It was worth six cigarettes for his guide and this rather onerous journey on foot.