William Craig - Enemy at the Gates

Ever since Manstein had pulled Hermann Hoth’s panzers back from the relief effort toward Stalingrad, he had phoned daily demands to East Prussia for the prompt withdrawal of the Germans in the Caucasus. And only on December 29 had Adolf Hitler authorized the retreat of the First Panzer Army.

Now, on New Year’s Day, they finally turned their vehicles around and bolted for safety. As their Mark IIIs and IVs drummed northward, the tankers were praying that Manstein would hold Rostov open long enough to save their lives.

From the beginning of the encirclement, German military censors outside the Kessel had kept careful watch on the mail flown from Pitomnik to Germany. At first, the monitors estimated that more than 90 percent of the letter writers exuded both complete confidence in their leaders and in their own ability to endure hardships caused by temporary reliance on the airlift. Also, because they had been involved in other temporary “cauldrons” in the lightning-fast panzer actions of past years, German troops had had little difficulty relating those “defeats turned to victory” to the predicament they faced at Stalingrad. Had not General Seydlitz-Kurzbach himself been involved in the rescue of a hundred thousand Germans at Demyansk in Central Russia the past winter? Thus the initial avalanche of mail to the Reich reflected an apparently unshakable conviction that the Wehrmacht was still invincible.

That conviction had held until Christmas. Between that day and the end of the year, however, censors noted a sharp decline in morale. Men began to demand better mail delivery and a speedup of parcels from home to supplement dwindling rations. They also complained openly about the cold, averaging twenty degrees below zero, and bemoaned the incessant snowfall, the lice, fleas, and rats.

Still, the majority of the Germans in the Kessel seemed to retain a spirit of defiance and hope, or so they told their loved ones. One man wrote: “Our weapons and our command are the best in the world.” Another boasted: “…we gladly make every sacrifice for our country in hopes that our people will see better times than we do.” A third said: “Of course we will always be the stronger ones, there can be no doubt about that.”

Two enlisted men breathed both defiance and a rigid belief in the regime that had led them to the Kessel: On December 30, one, a corporal, APO No. 36 025 had written:

Don’t get any false ideas. The victor can only be Germany. Any battle requires sacrifices, and you should be proud to know that your son is in the very center of the decision. How pleased I will be to stand before you some day with all my medals. And to prove my valor to Uncle Willi, who always told us boys that our first goal was to become a man during combat. I remember those words all the time. We know what is at stake as far as our country is concerned. We love our country now more than ever before. Germany shall live even though we may have to die.

On December 31, the other, a private first class, APO No. 24836B wrote:

The Russians are flooding us with leaflets. When I come home I shall show you some of the nonsense that they are writing. They want us to surrender. Do they really believe we are puppets for them? We will fight to the last man and the last bullet. We will never capitulate. We are in a difficult position in Stalingrad, but we are not forsaken. Our Führer will not leave us in the lurch…. We will receive help and we shall endure…. If we have a little less to eat, and if we have to do without many other things, it does not matter. We shall endure.

In their mail analysis, censors flashed a warning signal to higher authorities about what to expect when January came: “it must be expected that there will be a decline in morale as hope for relief… wanes….” The censors’ prediction proved alarmingly accurate. An abrupt, fatal change in mood occurred, and the number of farewell letters increased dramatically.

The tone of these messages reflected the sudden awareness that events were narrowing each man’s prospects of survival to infinitesimal percentages. When last wills and testaments multiplied, censors tried to be delicate in their excisions of material. Using pens or pencils to match that used by the sender they smudged over words or made them illegible, as though the writer himself had made the errors.

One discouraged officer told his family, “…You can’t starve those swine…. They have absolute air superiority here, day and night, nothing but those rapacious birds. I cannot imagine an end to this and that is what really gets you down.”

A surgeon writing to his wife was brutally frank with her about life in the Kessel. He described how he had just taken off a man’s leg at the thigh with a pair of scissors, and how the patient endured the hideous surgery without anesthesia.

A corporal mirrored a growing sentiment; “To tell you the truth, I would rather meet with sudden death than pine away gradually….”

Quartermaster Karl Binder wrote his twenty-sixth letter from the Russian front. It was another poignant attempt to prepare his family for death:

My dearest wife,

I am still alive and alright [sic]. Today—Sunday—I attended the funeral of several soldiers of my bakery company. It is cruel what you witness in the cemeteries. Should I ever return home, I will never forget what I have seen. It is an epic second to none. I am sorry that I have not received any letters from you since December 5. I would be so happy to read a word of love from you for one does not know what the next hour, the next day will have in store. My dearest wife, come what may, I am prepared for everything. When the time comes I shall die a soldier…God is with us every hour—these were the words of the Protestant minister at the cemetery, which is overflowing. It increases in dimension like an avalanche. But the brutal enemy is still kept under control. He will not succeed in overwhelming us, as long as I have one hand that can hold a weapon.

Time is now so short that I must concern myself about the end of everything. I have lived my life—not always a pious one—and life has always handled me roughly. There have been times when a spark of carelessness or passion controlled my heart. But I have always endeavored to be decent, a comrade, a soldier. I also tried to be a good husband to you and a good father to the children. I don’t know if I was successful. Probably I was too harsh, but I had only one thing in mind: your happiness. It is too late to change anything, apart from the fact that I don’t know what I could change, but I love all of you more than ever. Bring up the children for their benefit. Life has not provided me with much sunshine. Most of it came from you and the children so let me thank you here and now….

With us, Death is a daily guest. He has lost all his horrors for me…. In case I fall, move to Schwäbisch Gmünd as soon as possible. Life is cheaper there. There are 1,900 reichsmark on my account at the post office savings bank. My belongings are in a small suitcase, a big handbag, a bootbag and perhaps a small wooden suitcase.

I don’t know if you will get these things…. The garrison liquidation office and the maintenance board in Stuttgart will give you information about your pension.

Throw away my uniforms. The rest is yours, …I wish you and the children all the best for the future. Let us hope that we shall be reunited in the other world. Don’t be sad, the worst may not happen. But I feel urged to set everything in order. God’s will be done. So never say die. I won’t either, in spite of everything.

All my love and affectionate kisses to you. I shall love you unto death.

My love and kisses to the dear children.