Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

The column disperses and fans out across the plain. One after another, they slip to the ground and are slowly enveloped by the white shroud as tracer bullets from Russian machine guns whistle over their heads. There’s no shouting, no questions, no noise at all. That kind of deathly hush can only come from people who have given up on everything. But this terrible silence rises up to the heavens like a single painfully pressing question, to which no answer comes: ‘What is the point of these sacrifices, what are they for?’

In a blinding insight born of all that he has experienced over the past few days, the truth now dawns on Captain Gedig: the High Command… Army Group Manstein… No, these two hundred sacrificial lambs won’t save the Sixth Army. No one can save it now. It too is going to be put to the sword, pointlessly, senselessly. It is all over.

‘It’s nothing short of criminal!’

The two officers sitting at the back of the bunker give a start. What was that? Did someone speak? Or are some thoughts so distressing and urgent that they can miraculously express themselves? The colonel up front there can’t possibly have said anything so outrageous. It’s just not possible! But then the two of them hear quite clearly what Colonel von Hermann says next:

‘And the worst thing is, there’s no way out now… and woe betide anyone who tries to save his own skin after he’s had to demand this of his men!’

‘So, there’s no escape from here?’ thinks Breuer desperately. ‘Is there such a thing as a “must”? Is there really and truly no way out?’

And he is at a loss to explain why the image of Lance Corporal Lakosch pops into his head.

When Colonel von Hermann got back to his bunker, Unold pushed a note under his nose.

‘High Command just called,’ he said. ‘You’re to be transferred with immediate effect, as per your wish.’

The colonel glanced at the note, giving a couple of thoughtful nods.

‘But that’s Calmus’s division they want me to take command of! What’s happened to Calmus?’

‘Nervous breakdown… apparently!’

‘My, my! Is that division in the northern sector of our eastern front?’

The lieutenant colonel cast an eye over the map.

‘It covers the sector from the tractor factory to Rynok,’ he replied briefly.

‘And what’s going to happen about the formation of fortress battalions?’

‘The CO of the rocket regiment will take over responsibility for that.’

‘Hmm,’ said the colonel, casting a searching look at his chief of operation’s inscrutable face. ‘So that now makes you and the rest of the divisional staff redundant, so to speak?’

Unold did not reply; at the corners of his mouth, little creases started to form.

‘Well, my dear Unold,’ the colonel went on, and his choice of words came across like he was trying to expunge the man from his life once and for all: ‘then I wish you all the very best for your life hereafter and for your career!’

Breuer found his men in a state of considerable uproar.

‘Is it true, Lieutenant, that we’re shifting command posts this evening already?’

‘People are saying that the planned breakthrough is going to happen after all!’

‘Are our advance Panzer units really just outside Kalach already?’

‘Gentlemen, please!’ Breuer told them irritably. ‘That’s all a load of rubbish. We’re staying put, and everything stays the same – for the time being, anyhow.’

The men sat back down, deflated. Corporal Herbert handed the first lieutenant a small pile of filled-out telephone message forms.

‘It’s the communiqués from the Corps,’ he said eagerly. ‘I’ve put them all together.’ Breuer skimmed through the slips. Their content was the same as that of all reports over the past few days: the Russians were reinforcing along the whole of the Cauldron front. And a report of an enemy breakthrough at Zybenko? Well, he’d just experienced that at first hand. Suddenly, something in the pile caught his eye and made him pause.

‘What’s this nonsense! “At one location, one hundred and twenty Stalin organs are believed to be massed.” That’s got to be an error! They must mean twelve!’

He reached for a pencil to strike out the zero. But Herbert assured him, ‘No, no, Lieutenant, sir, that’s right. It struck me as odd, too, so I queried it straight away. Eighty have been reported at another site!’

Breuer blanched. He did some quick mental arithmetic: a hundred and twenty multiple rocket launchers, each mounted on a simple lorry with an operating crew of four or five men, 8-centimetre calibre… that made a total of three thousand, eight hundred and forty rounds. Or maybe they had some of the heavier-calibre launchers too, the 13-centimetre ones – that would mean almost two thousand rounds in a single salvo. Two thousand 13-centimetre rockets landing on a single spot, on this open plain, which offered no cover or protection whatsoever for the men. Every living thing would be wiped out in an instant! He continued with his calculations: one German unit of heavy field howitzers of 10-centimetre calibre, which required a complement of more than six hundred soldiers and the same number of horses, could fire just forty-eight rounds in any one salvo…

You can rely on me with rock-like confidence! Pah!

‘That’s all just bluff, of course,’ said Sonderführer Fröhlich calmly. ‘They’ve probably parked up a few trucks with tree trunks on the back to fool our reconnaissance. They used those kinds of tricks in East Prussia back in 1914. But no one with half a brain’s taken in by that nowadays!’

‘Herr Fröhlich,’ replied Breuer, ‘if you caught a bullet in the ribs, it really wouldn’t surprise me to hear you say “No worries; it’s all a sham – most likely just a pamphlet”!’

A man climbed down into the bunker, out of breath. It was the corporal from the mess.

‘Finally!’ cried Herbert. ‘There was us thinking we weren’t going to get anything else to eat today.’

‘No, the soup isn’t ready yet,’ said the corporal with a grin. ‘I’m just bringing you one of the ingredients for the time being!’

With this, he handed Breuer a sodden piece of blue paper and launched into a rambling account.

‘So, I look at my watch, right, and it’s half-four already! So I say to my two Hiwis : “ Dawai – get a move on, lads! I need some water for tonight’s soup!” Back they come with a huge pile of snow in their arms. In it goes into the pot, with six of the pea cubes and the horse’s leg. Well, I’m busy stirrin’ it round and round, nice and careful like, so it doesn’t get too thin… an’ all of a sudden there’s this piece of paper here sticking to the ladle!’

Breuer carefully spreads the soggy scrap of paper out on the table.

‘Probably another one of Paulus’s Epistles to the Cauldronians,’ he jokes.

‘Nah, Lieutenant,’ replies the cook, ‘this one’s from the comrades over there! I’m on tenterhooks to hear what you reckon to it. Me and the lads over at the mess have already had a long discussion about it. So, anyhow, that’s the reason the soup’s still going to take a bit longer.’

Breuer, meanwhile, had a quick read of the note.

‘Well, well… that’s very interesting! Listen to this: it’s an ultimatum to Paulus!’ He read:

To the commander of the German Sixth Army, General Paulus, or his deputy, and to all the officers and men of the encircled force…

The men crowded round the first lieutenant, who had gone to stand under the light so he could read the note more easily. Only Lieutenant Wiese carried on reading. Since the incident with the burning Ju 52, he took hardly any interest in what was going on around him. If someone spoke to him, his response was friendly enough, but he was distant and indifferent, and he frequently alarmed his comrades with the meaninglessness of his responses. But even he pricked up his ears as Breuer continued: