Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

And he dashes off across the open expanse. Some of the men follow him.

‘Chaaaaarge!’ His battle cry sounds hoarse and rather constricted at first, but then rises to a clear, furious pitch, transcending all fear. The cooks, office clerks and drivers following in his wake must be uttering this cry for the first time in their lives. They put all their pent-up frustration into it. Up to now, all they’ve been required to do is to suffer, suffer and hold out. Now at last they can see some action – finally! And however futile this action might be, it brings them a sense of release.

From behind the charging men comes the staccato bark of a machine gun. The Russians are laying down covering fire for their men. Here and there, some of the attackers fall down, while the rest, quickly brought to their senses, stop running and stand frozen between fear and doubt, helplessly exposed to the bursts of fire from the machine gun. Breuer has also set off up the incline. He recognizes the folly of the initial assault and can see the danger the men are in.

‘Stop!’ he bellows at the top of his lungs. ‘Turn around! Lie down! Stop!!’

Suddenly something knocks him to the ground. A searing pain centred on his left eye bores into his skull. He feels something warm running down his face. Then he slips into unconsciousness.

When, not long after his discussion with Knittke, the commander-in-chief of the army summoned the heads of the various corps to a meeting, the colonel’s hopes were raised again. He was tempted to chalk this up as a success for himself. But he was wrong in this. The meeting had been arranged some time beforehand. The Eighth and the Eleventh Corps were only represented by their respective chiefs of staff. No one at all from the Fourteenth Panzer Corps attended. The one-armed general who had intended to fight to the death in a foxhole in Dubininsky had just flown in a few days ago, fresh from attending his daughter’s wedding, and was present, resplendent in his Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves. On the orders of Army High Command he had left the celebrations in a tearing rush, without even saying goodbye. ‘To bring some order to the air supplies,’ was the official reason. It seemed an operational general from the Stalingrad Cauldron was needed to make sure that no more old newspapers, jam and private parcels were flown in for the top brass! Schmidt had suggested his old regimental comrade; he was to become the rope with whose help he would be able to extricate himself from the trap at the very last moment. The only commanders to put in a personal appearance were those from the Fourth and the Fifty-First, generals Jaenecke and Von Seydlitz.

Under the frosty gaze of General Schmidt, discussion at the meeting was weary and sluggish. The chiefs of staff hardly dared to open their mouths. General Jaenecke showed not the slightest interest any more in proceedings. He was wearing a dressing on a head wound. During an air raid, a beam from the ceiling of his bunker had come loose and cut a nasty gash in his head. Army High Command had been informed about this injury. And he had friends in high places, so he could count on being flown out. For good measure, he had already brought his successor along to the meeting. This was the old white-bearded general whom the Russians had harried so relentlessly at Zybenko. He delivered a morose account of the situation in their sector. Yes, he reported, lots of complaints were being made, and there had even been a few instances of open rebellion. His division scarcely existed any longer. It had disintegrated and dispersed. Yet he had little inclination to admit this in front of his own division.

The only person at the meeting who was loud and bullish was General von Seydlitz.

‘This so-called “fight to the last bullet” is insanity: complete and utter insanity!’ he boomed, emphasizing his words by rapping with his knuckles on the tabletop. ‘It’s easy to issue such an order from a conference room two thousand kilometres from the action. But I notice that none of the gentlemen responsible have ever come to see the situation on the ground here for themselves, not one of them! – What do we have left now? Let’s see – no artillery, no pilots, no ammunition and no fuel… just half-starved, exhausted troops and wounded men in their thousands, not to mention all the fatalities! So what are we supposed to fight with? With pistols, rifles and machine guns against tanks and Stalin organs and massed artillery?’

He cast his eye around those present in the room. It encountered faces that displayed either defeat or boredom. They were used to General von Seydlitz getting on his high horse every now and then, and knew all his arguments by heart. They were always the same. Schmidt’s eyes twinkled in an almost friendly manner at the general. The usual flare-up from this blowhard, he thought contemptuously. Von Seydlitz’s face was glowing with rage; he was lost for words. How many times had he said the same thing in this forum, always the same message and always to no purpose? They’d got him pegged as a troublemaker, which made it easy for them not to take him seriously. But that wouldn’t prevent him from saying it over and over again, from proclaiming his message about the atrocity that was taking place here to the world at large, now and for all time. His hand hammered down on the table. Once again his voice cut through the air with its high pitch and clipped delivery.

‘A battle of this kind, which apart from anything else is completely senseless and pointless, is – and this must be said loud and clear, because there’s no getting away from it – is nothing short of immoral and criminal! What’s happening here can never be the ultimate meaning of a soldier’s honour!’

Paulus looked up with a pained expression.

‘Thank you, gentlemen!’ he said. ‘I trust…’ – here he cast a questioning glance at the inscrutable face of his superior, Schmidt – ‘I trust I will be acting in the best interests of you all if I make representations to the Führer one more time, present him with the unvarnished truth and request that I be given a completely free hand.’

No one made any response to this, not even General von Seydlitz. He was relieved to have got things off his chest. Once again his anger had been dissipated through the safety valve of thunderous protest. This safety valve, which General Schmidt prudently refrained from blocking, guaranteed that this influential Corps commander’s recurrent outbursts of rage never became dangerous, never built up until the pressure was such as to cause a massive explosion, or to prompt any cathartic action on the general’s part. General von Seydlitz did what the others dared not do: he protested, valiantly and openly. But crucially, even he did not back up his words with action.

Colonel Knittke read the radio message that Schmidt had given him to encrypt and to transmit as a matter of the utmost urgency to the Army High Command. It began with a report of the current situation: shortages of everything – that had been said many times already, it really ought to have been expressed in stronger terms! Sixteen thousand untended wounded – that was good, and arresting. Incipient signs of serious disintegration – not bad either. Then came the conclusion: ‘Requesting freedom of action either to continue fighting, in so far as this is still feasible, or to capitulate, should further resistance prove impossible, so as to prevent complete annihilation and to ensure the welfare of our wounded and starving men.’

The colonel was bitterly disappointed. How could there be any talk of capitulation? That nullified the effect of all the other arguments: it torpedoed their own decision. Freedom of action – that would have sufficed! That left all possibilities open. But this unfortunate word ‘capitulate’ – one could of course contemplate such a thing and even do it when it became inevitable. But actually to utter the word, to a man like Hitler? Never! There could only be one reply.