Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

‘Look at this, the Russians broke through at both these places, here and here, first thing this morning. We’ve managed to plug this breach here, after a fashion… but we had to use all the reserves in the regiment that we could scrape together. Now I’ve committed some supply-train troops and men from the signals section to this second gap. And just now the regiment defending the sector on the far left reported that the Russians have broken through there as well. They’re now marching north, roughly battalion strength. Marching! There’s nothing to stop them there now. And I can’t spare a single man, do you understand? Not a single man!’

Virtually unnoticed by the others, Gedig and Breuer have sat down on a bench along the wall. The captain gives Breuer a wide-eyed look, but says nothing. Only now does it appear to dawn on him exactly what he has returned to.

The telephone keeps ringing almost non-stop. An endless stream of bad news. No sooner has the lively general staff officer despondently hung up than another call comes in. Then he’s over to the map once more with his charcoal pencil, drawing in new lines to try to get on top of the rapidly changing position. His chirpy voice is oddly at variance with the gravity of the situation.

‘What’s that, Colonel, sir? You say you can’t…? But it has to be that way! It must be possible to take two more platoons out of the battalion. Station a man every thirty metres! You’ll have to rake the ridge with machine-gun fire from a flanking position, then… No! I can’t send you any more men. It has to be done that way! What’s that? Yes, those are the general’s orders, and that’s that! ‘

Eventually, the general turns to Hermann in exasperation. ‘Look, Colonel, you’re an experienced tank commander. You’re familiar with these kinds of situations! Help me, please. Tell me honestly if there’s any way out of this sort of predicament? Is there anything we can do now?’

Colonel von Hermann shrugs his shoulders and says nothing. Suddenly, his mission here strikes him as totally pointless. On the orders of the High Command, he is expected to assume command here of the regiment on the right flank as well as the one on the far left of the neighbouring division. Does the top brass seriously think they can restore this desperate situation by simply shoe-horning a new, unfamiliar and untrained command post into the well-established system operating here? What utter madness! It’s men who are missing here: men! And more especially, a well-rested and battle-ready force.

The general breaks the oppressive silence. ‘The Corps promised me two hundred extra men. We could have used them to… But where have you been all this time, anyhow? We’ve been waiting for you since midday.’

Again, several minutes pass in silence. The general paces up and down restlessly. A feeling of impotence weighs heavily upon everyone. Suddenly, the low door to the bunker creaks and the tarpaulin curtain twitches. Two officers edge their way into the bunker. One is dressed in a white camouflage suit with a machine-pistol slung over his shoulder. He walks doubled over and evidently finds it hard putting one foot in front of the other. With an effort, he raises a hand in salute and announces in a weary voice: ‘Captain Lemke reporting for duty with two hundred men, sir!’

‘At last! We’ve been waiting for you. But just look at the state of you, man! What’s up with you? Are you ill?’

‘General, I’m only just back on my feet. I’ve been in hospital for the last six weeks with rheumatoid arthritis.’

‘God in heaven, man, what are you doing here then? I need soldiers, not cripples!’

The captain’s expression remains impassive.

‘General, sir,’ he says quietly and evenly, ‘my men are in much the same state as well. They’re all either wounded or sick. Most have come straight from hospital like me.’

The general stares aghast at the officers, one after the other, before launching into a gratuitous and unfocused diatribe, which he directs at the captain.

‘What the devil were you thinking of, eh? The situation here is deadly serious! I can’t help you, man! Like as not we’re all going to die like dogs here. So look, see this ridge here? That’s your sector. You’ve got to hold it at all costs, to the last man, understood? Tell your men that the fate of the entire Sixth Army depends on them, and them alone!’

The captain doesn’t budge from the spot and simply stares wide-eyed at the general. Slowly, and with visible discomfort, he starts to speak: ‘General… we haven’t eaten… since early this morning. Might we perhaps…?’

‘But of course, that goes without saying! You, Paymaster: issue your two hundred men with marching rations immediately! At the double, though, there’s no time to lose!’

The paymaster, the officer who had entered the bunker with the captain, breathes a heavy sigh. ‘That’s not possible, I’m afraid, General.’

‘What? Not possible? It must be! That’s what you’re there for!’

‘I don’t have any more rations, General! For weeks now, all we’ve been handing out are the hundred and fifty grams of bread a day per man that we’re given. I really don’t have anything more than that – no extra bread, no tinned meat. I could provision three or four men now at a pinch, but two hundred…’

The general lapses into a sudden state of apathy. His hands make a helpless gesture. Quietly, he says, ‘Oh well, they’ll just have to deploy as they are, then.’

He comes up to the silent captain and takes both of his hands in his. There are tears in his eyes again. He whispers, ‘It’s dreadful, I know. But there’s nothing I can do to help you.’

After a considerable wait, in response to an appeal by the Corps, the High Command revokes the order given to Colonel von Hermann. The general can scarcely find the time to take his leave of the visitors; he has long since returned to poring over the maps with his adjutant.

Under cover of the pitch-black night, the staff car jolts its way back to the old command post. An icy wind howls through the gaps in the bodywork and gnaws at the men’s limbs even through the blankets and greatcoats. The three officers travel in silence. Captain Gedig can feel his teeth chattering uncontrollably from the fierce cold. He was prepared for a lot of things, but hadn’t envisaged his return would be remotely like this . What had become of the happy times in Berlin, and the Christmas he’d spent in Gotha? What had once been a shining reality was suddenly submerged, extinguished. Through his feverish brain, like a film, rolls a sequence of images of that procession of the dead, setting out from somewhere beyond the Cauldron perimeter to liberate the Sixth Army.

There they go, dragging themselves through the darkness in their thin coats, their field caps perched on their heads. Some of them have wrapped rags around their ears to protect them from the frost. Their rifles are carelessly slung over their backs, and rattling in their greatcoat pockets are the ten bullets they’ve each been issued with. Hungry and shivering from cold, they trudge on through the knee-deep snow. Every so often, one of them keels over with a loud groan, picks himself up and then, after staggering on for a few more steps, finally collapses, never to rise again.

Their leader’s hand motions indistinctly forward. Up there is the hill, the position they’ve been ordered to take. Their faces, emaciated by illness and hunger, stare into the distant darkness illuminated only by the muzzle flare of the Russian guns. There are no trenches or bunkers up there. Before them, the white expanse stretches out endlessly, with flurries of powdered snow sweeping across it. There is no going back on the road they have come by. Anyone who is spared from being killed by enemy bullets will surely succumb to the biting cold of this icy January night.