Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

The area outside is now deserted. White-clad figures are scrabbling around on the far side of the valley. Infantrymen digging themselves snow holes. An 88-millimetre flak gun is being set up at one corner of the stable block. Tank shells hiss over the escarpment. Where they land, a small yellow cloud of smoke can be seen above the snow. Further to the north, a string of bombers passes undisturbed across the sky. The ground shakes under the impact of the thudding bomb blasts.

Behind the building, the handful of medical orderlies have mustered all the walking wounded. A group of around eighty men so far, though their number is constantly swelled by others emerging from houses, foxholes and gullies. What is it that attracts them all, what drives them on? Is it the conviction that hope still resides at the place they’re being led to? Or is it the lure of the legendary field hospital at Gumrak, or the magic word Stalingrad? Out here in the icy wasteland of snow, soldiers’ crazed pipe dreams transform Stalingrad, that bombed-out, shot-up pile of ruins, into a Promised Land that holds out the prospect of a roof over one’s head, warmth and food. Maybe they are drawn by the little handcart being pulled along by the orderly there, with a few meagre loaves and tins of food on it? Or is it simply the naked animal instinct for survival?

Padre Peters scans the marching column that is just setting off slowly. What a picture of abject misery it presents. Are those figures dragging themselves along there still human? Those figures draped in tarpaulins and blankets, hobbling along and supporting one another, their heads swathed in white bandages, their arms in splints, their legs in lumpy plaster casts, their feet resembling club feet from the straw or pieces of rag they had wrapped around them? Yes, these emaciated bodies, these waxen yellow skulls and these grotesquely swollen faces covered in chilblains belonged to people. And these two soldiers carrying their stricken comrade along in a tarpaulin despite being scarcely able to stand upright themselves – my God, yes, these were all human beings! They had all lived and erred and sinned. But could a person be so guilty that they deserved this fate? No! Padre Peters’s innermost being screamed the word. Dear Lord, no, this cannot be Your will! My God, why hast Thou forsaken us?

The sky is overcast. Whirling snow sweeps over the procession as it makes its arduous way down the ice-crusted road. A soldier is dragging himself along between the padre and one of the medical orderlies. He can hardly lift his feet and is tottering about like a drunkard. His head, swaddled in a woollen scarf, is lolling backwards and swinging to and fro. His glassy eyes stare up at the sky. Peters is clinging on to this man for dear life. He is in the grip of an obsession. He must save this one man here, this hopeless case, at all costs. Then everything will be all right.

Just once, he cast a glance back at where they had come from. As he did so, he thought that some horrific apparition was mocking him. The building in the distance, which they had left just an hour before, was in flames… Now he didn’t look back any more. What lay behind him was erased for ever. And so he does not notice how, behind his back, the ranks of marching men begin to thin, as every so often a man collapses into the snow, never to rise again.

Hours pass. Littering their route are dead men who have keeled over and been mercifully covered by the falling snow. Vehicles overtake them, rushing past: empty or nearly empty lorries, or buses crammed with wood, crates, furniture and beds. But none of them stop to exchange their senseless, inanimate cargoes for the living.

A village appears, teeming with people. They take a short rest and shelter from the wind in the lee of the houses. The blast of exploding bombs nearby forces them to move on. Many remain behind, while others join their ranks. Onward they march, into the night, which is closing in from the east, the never-changing night of searchlights, blackout screens and bombs. In the darkness of a ravine, they come across a convoy of halted vehicles, heavy three-axled lorries with their radiators buried deep in wind-blown snowdrifts. The men rush up to them. These are some of the same trucks that only this morning… It’s so quiet, uncannily quiet. No sign of any drivers or orderlies. Every shout in this desolate place has an eerie echo. They climb up onto the trucks. There they all lie, just the same as when they were loaded up this morning, but now they are dusted with snow, frozen stiff and dead. And now the living fall upon the dead, dragging off their blankets, tearing the clothes from their hard-frozen bodies, screaming, jostling and tussling with one another to get hold of any warm piece of clothing they can lay their hands on… Oh God, why hast Thou forsaken us?

The night comes to an end and another day passes. Only a small band remains under the padre’s care now. And the one whom he was determined to save at all costs has long since frozen to death and is lying back there somewhere in the snow. Something has frozen inside Padre Peters, too, over this last dreadful day and a half. He thinks and feels nothing any more.

Another dawn breaks. Houses come into view, and a railway embankment. Gumrak, their destination! To their right is the wide expanse of a cemetery, an immense forest of crosses. Perhaps that’s their destination? Dead on their feet from exhaustion, the men stumble across the bomb-cratered road and make for a low brick building. Stepping over bodies lying on the ground, they crowd around the entrance to the field hospital. A sentry is stationed there. He holds his rifle at port arms and bars their way.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ he shouts. ‘What do you want? It’s chock-a-block here, floor to ceiling! There’s no room inside!’

He knows his duty is to defend those who have managed to find refuge here from the importunate, death-bringing world outside. And so he grips his rifle tightly and pushes these spectres of the night back into the darkness. They tumble over one another and sink to the ground, first snivelling and eventually falling silent. They have reached their goal.

A night disrupted by air raids and the distant sounds of fighting was followed by an uneasy day. Columns of vehicles and men came streaming from the west on their way to Dubininsky, bringing with them the hot breath of the front into the tranquil bunker city. Wood fires crackled beneath engines that had been allowed to freeze up; spurred on by superiors barking orders, soldiers dragged mattresses, window frames, planks and pieces of furniture from foxholes and piled them up on lorries in huge heaps. Panic gripped the logistics and supply units that were stationed here away from the front-line fighting and roused them from their hibernation.

Staff officers and the heads of various other units crowded into Unold’s bunker; some of them were wrapped in fur greatcoats and carried weapons slung round their chests. There was a strong smell of sweat and stale tobacco smoke. Unold stood leaning against the edge of the table. On this occasion, he exuded an air of almost too-punctilious correctness. However, the hunted look in his eyes belied these outward signs of self-confidence, while the pungent smell on his breath instantly betrayed what he had been seeking solace in (even if one failed to notice the half-empty bottle on the card table).

‘Gentlemen,’ he began, lowering his voice to a whisper that only served to make the tension in the room unbearable. ‘Since yesterday the major Russian offensive has been underway. It has forced a collapse of our western front. The Russians could be here as early as tomorrow. Our orders are to prepare to defend Dubininsky on all sides and to hold… to hold it to the last man! I don’t think we need waste any time assessing the importance of this order.’