William Craig - Enemy at the Gates

[Paulus:] +++ 1,000 cubic meters [nearly 250,000 gallons of fuel] and 500 tons of food. If we get that, all my armor and motor vehicles will have enough….[the fuel he needed was almost ten times what the airlift had brought him so far].

[Manstein:] +++ Well, that’s the lot. Good luck, Paulus.

[Paulus:] +++ Thank you, sir. And good luck to you, too.

Only a few hours later, the tanks of the 6th Panzer Division holding the bridgehead at Vassilevska wheeled about and began to recross the Mishkova River.

Hardbitten panzer crews brushed tears from their eyes as they turned their backs on countrymen waiting for them at Stalingrad. One officer stood in his turret hatch facing the northern horizon, snapped his right hand to his cap in salute, then ducked inside the Mark IV as it rumbled off to a new battle. By midnight the last panzer had left to try and save the Italian Army and stabilize Manstein’s left flank.

Meanwhile, German soldiers at the southern perimeter of the Kessel were straining to hear and see the vanguards of Manstein’s relief force. But the darkness remained impenetrable. The trapped troops shivered in their snowholes and tried to still the nagging fear that Manstein might never arrive.

Called to a meeting of 297th Division noncommissioned officers along the southern perimeter of the Kessel, Sgt. Albert Pfltiger walked gingerly along an icy path. As he neared the command bunker, he suddenly sensed a dark form off to the right and then a rifle shot sounded. The bullet smashed into his right arm and broke it.

Knocked to the ground, Pflüger gasped, “Oh, mama, now they’ve got me.” Then he passed out.

Another NCO came along, wrapped him in a poncho, and started dragging him along the bumpy path. Regaining consciousness, Pflüger insisted on walking and staggered to an aid station, where a doctor quickly bandaged the wound and sent him on to a base hospital.

On this day, December 23, the sergeant was just one of 686 Germans killed or wounded while waiting for Hitler to approve Thunderclap.

At dawn on December 24, the great German airfield at Tatsinskaya, 180 miles west of Gumrak, came under artillery fire from the Soviet Third Guards Army. The attack had been expected ever since the Italian Army had dissolved along the Don. All week long, Generals Martin Fiebig and Freiherr von Richthofen implored Hitler for permission to move the transport planes stationed at the field out of danger. But he refused, telling them that German reserves in the area could contain the enemy.

The Führer had been wrong again, and now on this misty morning, Fiebig stood in the control tower and watched in horror as two Ju-52s blew up from enemy shellfire.

A colonel beside him begged: “Herr General, you must take action. You must give permission to take off.”

But Fiebig answered: “For that I need Luftfiotte authority. In any case, it’s impossible to take off in this fog.”

Standing at rigid attention, the ashen-faced colonel replied: “Either you take that risk or every unit on the field will be wiped out. All the transport units for Stalingrad, Herr General. The last hope of the surrounded Sixth Army.”

When another officer agreed, that was enough for General Fiebig. With Russian shells slamming through the fog onto the runways, he ordered an immediate evacuations

At 0530 hours, only ten minutes after the attack began, the first lumbering Ju-52s roared to life and scrambled for the sky. Incredible confusion resulted. Planes took off from all directions; two Ju-52s collided in midfield and exploded. Others ripped off their wings and tails. In the midst of this holocaust, Russian tanks appeared on the runways as twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, and more planes skimmed low over them and climbed painfully into the murky sky.

When a Russian T-34 drove past Fiebig’s control tower, it prompted an aide to say: “Herr, General, it is time to go.”

But he was transfixed as he watched the terrible panorama outside the window, where the last Junkers were rolling down the field, crashing against other wreckage, skidding to a halt and catching fire.

At 0607, a German tank commander rushed in to say that the enemy had completely overrun Tatsinskaya and, eight minutes later, at 0615, the dejected Fiebig’s own plane lifted off the airfield and headed for Rostov.

On the ground below, fifty-six aircraft sorely needed for the Stalingrad shuttle, burned brightly through the haze. Only 124 of the airlift planes had gotten away safely.

Sixty miles north of the wreckage of Fiebig’s airfleet, Lt. Felice Bracci stirred in his stable and rose to the shouts of “ Davai bistre!” from impatient Russian guards. Behind Bracci, in the feed trough packed with straw, some of the men who had fought for space in its warmth ignored the guttural demands. They were dead, turned marble-like from the cold.

Still without food, the huge column of prisoners stumbled into another freezing morning. On the horizon, a lifeless sun peeped out at the Italians. A strange sun, Bracci thought, for those who came from a warm country. His breath quickly congealed on his overcoat collar and turned into tiny, white crystals. Above the column a cloud of vapor floated along with the soldiers, as though they were chain-smoking cigarettes.

The march continued through the morning. Bracci and another officer, Franco Fusco from Naples, walked side-by-side, saying nothing. Men fell out, rifles cracked and bodies dropped into the snow; the two found comfort in each other’s presence.

In early afternoon, Bracci saw a church belfry, then a few huts. He walked over a bridge; the river s underneath it had disappeared in countless snow storms. Someone called out that they had reached Boguchar, a former German headquarters, now a central assembly point for Russian divisions. Soviet cars and trucks careened past the prisoners, who halted abruptly before a large barracks. With the cold so intense that the Italians could not stand still, they jumped up and down and begged to be let inside. While they complained, a sullen crowd of Russian civilians gathered. Young, old, they muttered threats and spat on Bracci and his comrades. Some of them made gestures of beheading and strangling, then suddenly closed in and pounced on the prisoners. Like crazed wolves, the Russians stripped them of overcoats, shoes, caps, and blankets. Bracci was lucky when the Russians rejected his worn boots and ragged leggings in disgust.

The guards finally drove the villagers away, then called all doctors inside the building. Bracci was envious. He assumed the doctors’ miseries had ended and they would now take care of sick and wounded in more pleasant surroundings. He wished he had studied medicine at the university.

The doctors reappeared shortly, stripped of all medical supplies and warm clothing. After a lieutenant from Rome protested their treatment, the Russians took him inside, beat him viciously and threw him back into the street. Even then his misery had not ended. When his puppy, which had faithfully trotted beside him on the march, went to nuzzle the prostrate man, the Russians kicked it to death as he watched.

The Italian finally were crowded into barracks and, in pitch darkness, fell prostrate on the floor. Bracci was one of the last to get inside. Looking for a space to rest, he found a horizontal beam three feet off the floor and straddling it, tried to sleep. His body sagged, his head drooped. Several times he lost his balance and had to brace his feet on the ground for support. When his shoe hit a small box, he picked it up and thought it seemed full of butter. He dug greedily into it with his fingers and the greasy mixture went down easily. Only later did he find that he had eaten an automotive lubricant.

Outside the barracks, very far off, the lieutenant heard the sound of bells tolling, ringing out across the icy steppe. From a church somewhere, an organ played a solemn melody. Bracci knew what the sounds meant. He had known all day. Outside, where ordinary people lived, whether in Russia or in his beloved Rome, it was a time for happiness, for family and for love. It was Christmas Eve, 1942.