Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

‘So what about the “jellyfish”? The “Mobile Cauldron”?’ he asked, interrupting the general’s dazzling stream of verbiage and looking imploringly at the C-in-C for support. ‘I mean to say, a breakout was in planning, right?’

Shocked at this intemperate show of dissent, Schmidt stopped talking. Paulus looked up and blinked like he was looking into too bright a light. His hand lifted slightly from the table, as if by itself, before dropping back again.

‘The plan was turned down,’ he said quietly. General Schmidt, disregarding the interruption, immediately carried on with his presentation. ‘As long as we could entertain the possibility of breaking out under our own steam, we didn’t go along with the High Command’s suggestion. But as you will all now appreciate, the situation is different. Only the ruthless exploitation of our own manpower reserves at the front will afford us the possibility of holding out here for the duration.’

Holding out here for the duration… so that was the name of the game! Hungry and cold, stuck in this barbaric wilderness, where people dropped like flies in autumn. For the sake of this dubious attempt at ‘holding out’ they were going to forego the last opportunity to save the army? By implementing the planned ‘combing out’ exercise, the army would render itself permanently immobile, condemn itself to inaction, and throw itself, for better or worse, on the unreliable mercy of an external rescuer. When the general stopped speaking, the only sound in the room was the officers’ heavy breathing.

‘But this is all a load of nonsense!’ the old general with the face like a tiger blurted out at length. ‘We pressed rear-area troops into the front line ages ago. Anyone who can shoot a rifle’s already at the front. We don’t need the High Command’s orders for that!’

The grizzled old soldier was the only one present who didn’t fear the Sixth Army’s ‘evil spirit’. As an ensign, he’d been an effete and sickly young man, but almost forty years of service in the Prussian military had taught him what toughness meant. In the process, he had lost his heart. As president of the Imperial Military Court, he had also developed a cruel streak of misanthropy, and the whole package was rounded off by a splenetic, temperamental maliciousness born of old age and constant stomach complaints. He feared neither the Devil nor his acolytes. He was a match for them.

Schmidt’s eyes flashed like steel blades. ‘Oh yes, we know your “combing out” all right!’ he countered angrily. ‘Listen, if you had enough men spare to build grandiose bunkers like this—’

The tiger slammed his fist down on the table; the tips of his moustache trembled.

‘Utterly outrageous!’

Paulus raised his hands imploringly. ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, I beg you! The gravity of the current situation…,’ he began in pained tones. It was clear he found the whole affair embarrassing, deeply embarrassing. Did no one care what he thought?

‘The High Command has worked out for us,’ General Schmidt calmly continued, ‘that of the more than three hundred thousand men under our command, some two hundred and seventy thousand can be deployed on the front line. According to my calculations, there are still at least fifty thousand men here in the Cauldron who are hanging around to no useful purpose. That’s fifty thousand infantrymen!’

Infantrymen? Those drivers, ammunition-luggers, bakers and trench-diggers, all of them ailing and half-starved – infantrymen? What a joke! Was the top brass really that stupid, or just doing a very good impression of idiocy? Under the compelling glare of Schmidt the conjurer, with his incredible figure-juggling, no one dared give vent to their ridicule or indignation. For his part, Colonel von Hermann was only half listening. All this stuff no longer concerned him. He’d been summoned here only to learn that the breakout to the west, which he’d been hoping for all along and which he was to have spearheaded, had now been cancelled for good. He was a man of action, used to going on the offensive. Whatever might happen now was none of his business. He also felt paralysed by the stifling miasma of resignation emanating from the silent C-in-C over there, an aura that the breezy bumptiousness of the chief of staff could not dispel.

‘Fifty thousand men,’ Schmidt repeated, still juggling his imaginary figures. ‘Fifty thousand men: that makes eighty battalions, eighty new battalions! All we need to do is come at this problem from the proper angle, with a centralized administration. Register people by issuing special orders, give them eight days’ training and then pack them off to the front…’

Colonel von Hermann gave a sudden start. Was that his name he heard mentioned? He looked up to see General Schmidt’s gaze turned on him, full of barely concealed mockery.

‘So, Colonel von Hermann, that’ll be your responsibility, you and your staff officers. You’re forever requesting a responsible and important assignment – well, here it is! As of today, you’ll be Inspector for the Provision of Replacements in the Sixth Army!’

The colonel was in a state of profound shock. He was being entrusted with making this ridiculous numbers game they were fooling themselves with a reality? He , of all people? Contrary to his normal practice, he found the courage to object.

‘I’m grateful for your vote of confidence in me, General,’ he said, with much effort, ‘but I can’t pretend not to have deep misgivings about the whole enterprise. We simply don’t have what we require: winter clothing, field kitchens, enough officers and NCOs. Plus, in the present circumstances, these men would be of no use whatsoever in combat, nothing but cannon fodder. Eight days’ training won’t do anything to change that – that’s even assuming that we still have eight days to play with! The major Russian offensive—’

Schmidt flung down the pencil he’d been nervously tapping the table with. ‘Difficulties are there to be overcome, Colonel!’ he said frostily. ‘Key personnel will be flown in, weapons too. The niceties of training aren’t really of much relevance in our current situation. Even so, there’ll be enough time for all that anyhow, rest assured! And as far as the Russian offensive is concerned that everyone here keeps harping on about, the Russians just aren’t up to it! Not before the end of January, in any event – we have reports clearly demonstrating that.’

Though inwardly seething with indignation, Colonel von Hermann refrained from raising any further objections. Weapons would be brought in – pah! When they couldn’t even get hold of a few provisions any more? Recently, they’d moved heaven and earth to have twenty MG42 machine guns – the so-called ‘buzz saws’, with their rapid rate of fire – flown in. When they arrived, they were all missing a vital component and so were unusable. The colonel pursed his lips and gave a small bow. Any further discussion here was pointless.

The officers turned to discussing details. After much toing and froing, in which the tiger found several more opportunities to lose his temper, they finally agreed on the formation of ten battalions in the first instance. They spent a long time mulling over how these new units should be designated. Unold suggested the name ‘fortress battalions’, but this met with fierce opposition. It falsely implied, the others objected, that these were detachments specially trained in defending strongholds! They had every reason not to conceal the gravity of their situation from the High Command and the German public back home with such hokum. What with all that stupid talk going around already about ‘Fortress Stalingrad’… Some fortress, this bunch of foxholes dug in the snow!