Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

Breuer sat down at the table and rested his fevered brow in his hands. The only good thing was that they wouldn’t have to advance any more, into a witches’ cauldron where they would all be wiped out; better that they were making a final stand here, at this spot that he and his comrades had made into a little piece of home. Breuer would never have wanted to wish away the last few weeks he had experienced here. Sometimes, it seemed to him that they had been the most worthwhile part of his entire life. Every song that the men had sung together, every poem that had been read out loud, every word that had been spoken during the long hours of the night had had real resonance and value and depth here and had helped give them all inner strength. At one stage, he had hoped that these six weeks spent in the earth bunker outside Stalingrad might be a fresh start, a first step towards a new land. And no, it turned out not to have been a beginning, but an end after all.

Breuer looked up. There on the wall hung the photograph of his family still. His wife holding the baby on her lap, and their elder child standing beside her, his arm round her shoulders. Her smile radiated out into the room. That had been taken back then, in peacetime… Should he write to her? And what should he write? He knew that she was brave, but would she be strong enough to endure the truth, this truth? Might it not be better to leave it to the official Wehrmacht communiqué to report the demise of the Sixth Army? Sure, it wouldn’t represent the truth, but it would be the kind of bland statement that would soothe the pain. Breuer pulled a little packet from his map case. The letters that his wife had written to him while he was on campaign. He carefully unfolded the sheets and began reading. He was taking his leave of her. But as he read certain sentences, he pulled up short. They struck him as unfamiliar, somehow new. Puzzled, he looked at the date: 8.12.1940… Oh, right, that was when he’d been in France, luxuriating in peace and quiet. In those circumstances, he could well have skipped over parts of her letters. He read the lines through again:

You see, I’ve always taken the view that you can never be said to really love another person unless you allow them to put themselves in harm’s way. For in most cases, fearfulness for another person is nothing more than the cowardice of egotism. On the other hand, I honestly believe that true love’s preoccupation is to be constantly ready to support your partner wholeheartedly and to the best of your ability in all the dangers that might befall him…

Breuer put down the letter. He felt closer to her again, and he felt he could find the right words now. He started to write:

11.1.1943, OUTSIDE STALINGRAD

DEAR IRMGARD!

I am sorry to be the bearer of painful tidings. What you may already have surmised is true. We are encircled. And there’s no prospect of being rescued any more. The end is near. I can’t tell you in just a few words what’s happening here. A great crime is being committed, and one day our countrymen will call the guilty parties to account.

My dear Irmgard, we will surely never see one another again. At this sad time, I want to thank you for all the years of work and the cares and worries we shared and for all the happiness we enjoyed.

Even now I feel your closeness. From now on, you’ll have to be both mother and father to our boys, and looking after

them will give you the strength to carry on. Bring them up to be good and upright men, who will fight for justice and the truth and for brotherly love one day. And when they’re older, tell them that their father too once believed that he was living and dying for a noble cause. Irmgard, my darling, farewell!

Breuer sealed the envelope and put it in his coat pocket. And once more he picked up the bundle of letters from his wife. He held them in his hand, spread out like a fan, and drank in the sight of the familiar handwriting. Then he shuffled them all back together again and slowly tore the sheaf of letters into tiny pieces. He also took the photograph down off the wall and shredded it. He threw the pieces into the stove. Flames leaped from the glowing red embers and crackled up into the flue. Then the first lieutenant picked up his machine-pistol, which was hanging on the wall. He checked it carefully and clipped in the magazine. Slinging it round his shoulders, he took one last look around the room, turned out the lantern and walked out.

Colonel von Hermann stood up on the main road, where a stiff breeze was blowing. He had sent his staff car on ahead, down into the gorge where the command post was located. He wanted to have a few minutes alone to collect his thoughts and take stock of what he had just heard. His gaze wandered past the dome of the church in Gorodishche out to the grey houses down in the east, beyond which the ribbon of the Volga could just be made out. Down there somewhere was where the extreme forward positions of the division he was now in command of were situated. The Volga front had been quiet for some time now. The only activity was the occasional reconnaissance party, aerial attacks by night and sporadic disruptive artillery fire from the far side of the river. Only yesterday the colonel had visited the well-fortified positions out front there and been delighted at the atmosphere of peace and optimism he had encountered. Of course, the effects of the Cauldron were also apparent here, in the reduced rations and the fact that the division had had more and more men ‘combed out’ of it to reinforce other units elsewhere. Occasionally, an entire cohesive unit of the division would disappear to shore up the defences somewhere in the rear, never to return again. In general, though, they remained relatively unaffected by what was going on in the west. Just like his gaze right now, so the eyes of the whole division were turned eastward. That was where the front was, their front, which the men had contested and held at a huge cost in lives, and which they were determined to continue to hold. And now he was expected to tell them that all their sacrifices had been in vain… Would they believe him, would they be able to grasp the enormity of the present situation? Well, they’d have no choice but to believe it, when in just a few days’ time the front rolled up towards their rear, and when the remnants of defeated divisions and columns of marching casualties showed up here. And it would be a good thing if the men were forewarned of this well in advance.

‘So, von Hermann? What does the Corps say? Have you broached the question of fuel for the stoves with them yet?

Colonel von Hermann turned around. In front of him, with the fur collar of his greatcoat turned up against the cold and his hands buried deep in the pockets, stood Major General Calmus, the discharged divisional commander. He waved his hand in the vague direction of the nearby gorge, which was sparsely wooded with alders and poplars. In grateful recognition of this natural wonder, the troops had named this particular balka the ‘forested ravine’.

‘I took another look at the stocks of wood down there,’ Calmus continued. ‘It’s incredible how much timber they’ve felled in such a short time. There’s simply not enough there, old man! There’s no way it’s going to last us until the new year!’

The colonel looked thoughtfully at the general’s frost-reddened, worried face. When the news of the encirclement came through, Major General Calmus had suffered a nervous breakdown. From that point on, he showed not the slightest interest in leadership, but sat in his bunker the whole time calculating when the army would finally starve to death if this or that size of ration was issued daily. Or he spent his time mooning about the staff divisions bemoaning the dreadful situation and seeking reassurance from his colleagues.