Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

‘Colonel Lossev here, commanding officer 29th Division!’ came the reply from the other end, in impeccable German.

‘Colonel, you’ve threatened to blow my command post to smithereens. I would ask you to refrain from doing so! There are hundreds of wounded men in the building, and it’s not practicable to evacuate them in so short a time frame. In addition, I’m requesting a ceasefire be put in place until 0400 hours tomorrow morning for my entire sector.’

There was silence at the other end of the line for a moment. Then the voice, clearly that of an interpreter, came on again. The speaker did not address the colonel’s request at all, but instead began reading out the official Red Army conditions of surrender. Midway through a sentence there was a loud click and the connection was broken… Now of all times, damn it to hell! The major tinkered with the radio set, but to no avail! It proved impossible to establish any further communication. What now? Colonel Lunitz had no choice but to try to continue negotiations with the major, at least. But all he did was insist that the Germans lay down their arms straight away, and refused to discuss any other option.

‘You know what?’ said the colonel finally. ‘Let’s do a deal! You grant me a ceasefire until four o’ clock tomorrow morning, and at that point my men and I will let you take us prisoner!’

The Russian major was in agreement. They parted on the best of terms.

Colonel Lunitz was pleased with himself. The building was saved and at the same time he’d be able to carry out his orders from High Command. The chiefs of staff could sleep safe in their beds that evening. He’d like to see someone do any better! What happened afterwards was no concern of his. Orders were orders!

Even so, he was somewhat ill at ease. He ate his evening bread ration silently and morosely.

‘The Russians!’ someone shouts in panic into the room. Everyone leaps up. Breuer throws on his coat.

‘Quick, come with me!’

He drags Fröhlich to his feet and rushes outside. The Sonderführer follows hard on his heels, holding his machine-pistol.

They stumble up the wooden stairs. Bullets ping over their heads, making a pattering sound as they thud into the brickwork. A sentry is cowering beside one of the pillars at the entrance to the courtyard, waving his white flag. He gestures to them to hurry up. Breuer sticks his head around the corner in time to see two small brown-coated figures come running across the square, crouching low and carrying machine guns. The ear flaps of their ushankas waggle like elephants’ ears.

‘Come, come!’ they call from some distance away, beckoning to them.

Fröhlich stands rooted to the spot, gazing at them. Breuer feels his heart pounding so hard it seems to have risen to the back of his throat.

The Russians steadily advance, chattering excitedly and shouting over one another. Over and over, in broken German, they keep calling:

‘Come, all come!’

Fröhlich leans against the wall. He is shaking all over.

‘Why don’t you open your mouth, for Christ’s sake!’ Breuer yells at the interpreter. ‘Tell them we want to speak to an officer, and that we’ve got wounded men…’

Fröhlich’s body is shaken by a sudden violent spasm.

‘No!’ he roars. ‘Noooooo…!’

Abruptly, he lurches out from his cover and makes off with long strides across the street and out into the square. The two Russians stare at him in astonishment. His head thrown back, he gallops away, his legs kicking out to the side like a startled colt. His coat tails billow out behind him. His bellowing echoes spookily across the square:

‘Noooo… nooooo… No-oo-ooo!!’

There comes the hollow rattle of a machine gun. Fröhlich leaps high into the air, flings his arms wide, and hops from one leg to the other like some demented elf before clutching at his midriff and sinking to his knees. His torso slumps forward and he lies still. At the sound of the machine gun, Breuer has thrown himself to the ground. One of the Russians has disappeared somewhere and the other is rolling on the ground, moaning. He has dropped his machine-pistol. He shoots Breuer a look of pure hatred and reaches for his pistol. He clearly thinks they’ve been tricked. The machine gun is still spitting murderous volleys from the far side of the square. By crawling round the injured Russian, Breuer is finally able to make it to the safety of the courtyard gate.

The passageway leading to the cellar is thronged with soldiers. The Romanian general is there too, with his officers.

‘It isn’t quite time yet,’ Breuer tells them. ‘The surrender didn’t work. We’ll have to wait a bit!’

Later, not without difficulty, they rescue the wounded Russian from the courtyard. He’s been shot through the thigh. Dr Korn dresses the wound. When he realizes that he is being treated well and even allowed to keep hold of his weapons, he calms down and gets chummy.

‘ Nu shto ?’ [2] Nu shto? – ‘What do you think?’ he asks them, a broad grin breaking across his round face, ‘ Gitler kaputt , yes?

The officers say nothing in response.

Hitler kaputt!

The night is exceptionally quiet. Transport aircraft still circle in the clear sky above. None of the officers gets a wink of sleep. They sit around, sunk in their thoughts. There’s nothing more to be said.

It was around seven-thirty in the evening when an unknown officer appeared at Colonel Lunitz’s command post. With his steel helmet, his carbine in his hand and grenades clipped to his belt, he looked very martial. The man gave a stiff salute.

‘The Colonel is to accompany me forthwith to the High Command!’ he announced formally. The colonel blanched. So, they’d listened in to his conversation with the Russian officer, had they? He knew what that meant. After all, hadn’t Schmidt wanted to court-martial the army’s head of signals on the mere suspicion that he might have tried to make contact with the enemy? Without a word, he stood up and put on his fur coat. Captain Schulte sprang to his feet.

‘I’m coming with you, Colonel!’

‘No, you stay here,’ the colonel declined. ‘Make sure everything stays shipshape here – in the event I don’t come back.’

Colonel Lunitz had trodden the path to High Command many times, certainly far more often than his weapon-encumbered escort, as it turned out. For even after just a few metres, as they picked their way over piles of rubble and round bomb craters, he’d managed to lose him somewhere in the darkness. Lunitz turned off to the right, heading for the front-line positions. He’d negotiated with the enemy, acted on his own initiative. He knew what awaited him. Far better to end it all on his own terms! He was so heartily fed up with the whole business, sick to the back teeth. He felt for his pistol. But an inner feeling of outrage, a nagging resentment, stayed his hand. Had he done something so very terrible? No, he’d taken the only course of action left to him! If that was such a grotesque transgression against tradition and protocol, was that his fault? Was there anything about Stalingrad that wasn’t grotesque?

The night was bitterly cold. The Ju 52s were still droning overhead. Off to one side, some bright beads of tracer fire shot up into the sky, and here and there a red or a white flare. That was the Russians; they were firing off captured German signal flares in the hope of seizing supply drops. Hitler was supplying the Red Army. ‘One Führer, One People, One Theatre!’ someone had chalked on the entrance portal to the Gorky Theatre.

The colonel walked slowly along the southern side of the square, where his men were crouching, at intervals of some twenty to thirty metres, on heaps of rubble or behind the remnants of walls. This was the ‘front’. And these were his defences protecting the High Command against artillery and tanks! In truth, it was just a string of sentries too weak even to cordon off the square against a mob of unarmed protestors. He spoke with a few of the men, jollying them along and handing out the last of his cigarettes.