Heinrich Gerlach - Breakout at Stalingrad

The 70-watt transmitter quickly dispatched the message to the Führer’s headquarters. After little more than a couple of hours, the reply was already there. A long-winded answer, which began with unstinting praise. But what followed exceeded their worst expectations.

‘Freedom of action and capitulation refused! … All measures for large-scale supply already in train… Through its heroic struggle the Sixth Army will fulfil the historic mission of facilitating the formation of a new front close to and north of the city of Rostov.’

How clear, how dreadfully clear the whole situation now was. Large-scale supply – when the final airfield had just fallen to the Russians? Formation of a new front? The whole thing was total nonsense, nothing but shadow-boxing! The order that was being issued here – dressed up in nauseating stock phrases and shameless lies – was the cold-blooded sacrifice of an entire army. Three hundred thousand men – slaughtered to the last man… an act of mass murder that made the ghastly sacrificial killings of the Aztecs look like child’s play. And to what end? Because a heroic myth was required for the greater glory of the madman back in Germany! That was the real ‘historic mission’! The colonel groaned. So, they were to die a heroic death! His knees grew unsteady. All his hopes lay in ruins. And the pity of it all was he loved heroism, albeit only at one remove and not at the cost of his own skin.

But if Colonel Knittke had expected this brazen reply to spark open revolt among the commanders of the Sixth Army, he was to be sorely disappointed. The mood remained calm, suspiciously calm. Did they go in such great fear of the tyrant, even thousands of kilometres away here, well beyond his sphere of power? Or – or had Schmidt actually wanted Hitler to send the reply he did? The colonel couldn’t fathom things any more. He could see how the cards were dealt but didn’t understand the rules of the game.

When Paulus retired with the message into the adjoining room, General Schmidt took the colonel by the arm and steered him aside.

‘Tell me, Knittke, do you have any way of contacting the Russian front along the Don?’

The colonel could not believe his ears. So it really was happening! Finally, things had come to a head! Of course, this was the inevitable outcome. And he, Knittke, and no one else had been the catalyst. He was the saviour of the Sixth Army!

‘Indeed, General, sir! Of course!’ he said eagerly, already savouring a growing feeling of his own importance. In a trice, the deceptively cheerful expression of his interlocutor changed to a face like a thundercloud. And without warning the storm broke over the colonel.

‘How the devil can that be?’

The blood drained from the colonel’s face as he was brought down to earth with a bump.

‘I… I don’t understand the General’s question. There are always ways and means of establishing contact!’

‘So you’ve tried it already, have you?’

‘No, General, sir!’

‘So how can you know such a possibility even exists?’

In an instant, the colonel spotted the deadly danger he was in.

‘We know all the frequencies and the call signs the Russians use, General!’ he said as calmly as he could. ‘If we were to broadcast on those, we’d be picked up over there. There’s no need to try to make contact in advance.’

A good feint and parry, he thought to himself. But overconfidence got the better of him and he added, ‘Actually, even someone who isn’t a signals expert ought to be able to grasp the principle of that, General, sir!’

‘Aha, I see…’ General Schmidt studied his fingernails. ‘Well, Colonel, I’d strongly advise you against such an attempt. Any contact with the enemy is an act of high treason. It will cost you your head!’

Paulus returned. He seemed relaxed and content. When he noticed the colonel’s stricken face, he looked embarrassed.

‘You see, I tried everything,’ he said, as if to excuse himself, ‘but I’m only just another link in the chain. I can’t break the chain.’

That same day, Schmidt presented the C-in-C with an order of the day to the troops that he had drafted. Paulus gave it a cursory look and signed it.

The order was dated the twentieth of January, 1943.

The senseless attack by the Russian reconnaissance party had cost Fackelmann’s company three wounded and one dead. Breuer was taken to the old major’s bunker. The medical orderly had not been able to do anything more than apply an emergency dressing. It was by no means clear exactly what had happened. It appeared that, as Breuer fell to the ground after being wounded, something sharp had jabbed itself into his eye. Moreover, he must have suffered some sort of brain concussion, because he was still unconscious. Fröhlich was by his side almost constantly, and even Herbert and Geibel came and stood around helplessly. The incident had thrown all their calculations into disarray. The whole escape plan was now in doubt.

Night closed in. It had stopped snowing and the temperature had dropped again. The moon shone full and sickly green through veils of fleeting grey clouds. Beyond the German front line the Russians, in carefree abandon, had lit blazing campfires all around. Black figures stood out in sharp relief against the bright flames. Snatches of laughter and singing drifted over, engines stuttered into life and vehicles cast dazzling headlight beams across the snowy landscape. They knew that their prey, which they now held in a choking grip, was no longer to be feared. Now and then, a low-flying ‘sewing machine’ came puttering along and circled over the gorge. The dark bird-like silhouette of the machine was clearly visible against the milky moonlit sky and its red and green navigation lights looked down like the eyes of a raptor. But it didn’t strafe them or drop any bombs. It wasn’t worth it any more! Despite their miserable predicament, the men crouched behind the snow ramparts, clenched their teeth grimly and clutched their rifles tightly. This shameful lack of respect shown by the enemy was worse than any pitched battle.

Breuer tossed and turned on his camp bed. Glaring lights pierced the darkness of his unconsciousness. He moaned in feverish dreams. It was high summer. He was stretched out on a beach somewhere on the Baltic Sea, with the sun beating down out of an unbroken expanse of azure sky. The white sand stretched out as far as the eye could see, silent and soothing. The sea lapped softly at the shoreline, while behind him, improbably far away, the white humps of shifting sand dunes shimmered in the heat haze. But now the sun was burning, glowing red-hot, scorching his flesh! Its searing heat gnawed ever more ferociously into his defenceless body. Pain… pain… and then darkness once more. And now another image floated before him. A lake, in the shadow of a black wood. Straw-roofed buildings nestling in a green forest clearing. The sound of bells pealing across the water from an isolated church tower. On a distant hill, three black crucifixes loom over the dead from the Battle of the Masurian Lakes. Little by little, the boat rocks through the lapping waves. Two brown eyes are shining with happiness. Irmgard – there is a sharp hiss as the boat noses its way through tall reeds and its bow slices deep into the mossy bank. Redness flows instantly from the wound it has made, spreading out over the shoreline and the lake. Help, help! The earth is drowning in blood…

When Sonderführer Fröhlich arrived at the bunker the next morning, he met Breuer staggering out of the doorway towards him. He looked dreadful. His flowing greatcoat was covered with large, rust-brown stains and beneath his misshapen head bandage the lieutenant’s stubbly, blood-caked face looked ghostly thin. His good eye flitted about restlessly.