William Craig - Enemy at the Gates

The stunned colonel had trouble getting the point: Schmidt, the martinet, also wanted to surrender! Then he recovered enough to say: “If that is all you want, sir, I believe I can promise you that a parliamentarian will report here in front of the basement tomorrow morning at about 0900 hours.”

Schmidt was suddenly gentle, “All right, Ludwig, you see to that—good night now.”

Minutes later, the 71st Division commander, General Roske, went to Paulus and said, “The division is no longer capable of rendering resistance. Russian tanks are approaching the department store building. The end has come.”

Paulus smiled at his aide, “Thank you for everything, Roske. Convey my gratitude also to your officers and men. Schmidt has already asked Ludwig to take up negotiations with the Red Army.”

Paulus went back to his cot where Colonel Adam sat across from him. A small candle flickered between them; neither spoke for a while. Finally Adam said, “Sir, you must go to sleep now. Otherwise you will not be able to stand up to tomorrow’s trials. It will cost us the rest of our nervous strength.”

Shortly after midnight, Paulus stretched out to nap, and Adam went to Roske and asked if there were any new developments. Roske gave him a cigarette, lit one for himself, and said: “A Red tank is standing quite close in a side street, its guns aimed at us. I immediately reported to Schmidt on the matter. He said the tank must be prevented from firing at all costs….The interpreter should go to the tank commander with a white flag and offer negotiations….”

Adam went back to his own cot from where he stared across the room at his sleeping commander. His relationship with Paulus had become almost worshipful and Adam could no longer see the flaws in Paulus’s character: his failure to comprehend the destructive alliance that existed between Hitler’s ambitions and the Wehrmacht’s apolitical generals, or Paulus’s unwillingness to shoulder the burden of independent command. What a handsome man, Adam thought as he pondered the events that had overwhelmed such a brilliant military career. Decent and honorable, Paulus had subordinated himself completely to Hitler’s demands and in so doing, had lost control of his destiny.

While the commander in chief of the Sixth Army rested, the Führer employed one last device to salvage something from the disaster. He ordered a shower of promotions on Sixth Army’s senior officers, most notably one that made Paulus a field marshal. Knowing that no German field marshal had ever surrended, Hitler hoped that Paulus would take the hint and commit suicide.

Paulus did not. Before dawn, his interpreter, Boris von Neidhardt, went out through the darkened square to the Russian tank, where a young Soviet lieutenant, Fyodor Yelchenko, stood in the turret. When Neidhardt waved to him, Yelchenko jumped down and Neidhardt said, “Our big chief wants to talk to your big chief.”

Yelchenko shook his head and answered: “Look here, our big chief has other things to do. He isn’t available. You’ll just have to deal with me.” Suddenly apprehensive because of nearby shelling and the presence of the enemy, Yelchenko called for reinforcements and fourteen Russian soldiers appeared with their guns ready.

Neidhardt was disgusted. “No, no, our chief asks that only one or two of you come in.”

“Nuts to that,” Yelchenko said. “I am not going by myself.” The lieutenant with the turned-up nose and boyish smile had no intention of going alone into the enemy camp. After agreeing on three Russian representatives, the group went into the cellar of the Univermag where hundreds of Germans had gathered. Yelchenko had a difficult time deciding who was in command. Though Roske spoke to him and then Arthur Schmidt, he did not see Paulus.

After Roske explained that he and Schmidt were empowered to speak for the commander and negotiate a surrender, Schmidt asked as a special favor that the Russians treat Paulus as a private person and escort him away in an automobile to protect him from vengeful Red Army soldiers. Laughing gaily, Yelchenko agreed. “Okay,” he said, and then they took him down the corridor to a green-curtained cubicle. Yelchenko stepped in and confronted Friedrich von Paulus, unshaved, but immaculate in his full-dress uniform.

Yelchenko wasted no time on formalities. “Well, that finishes it,” he offered in greeting. The forlorn field marshal looked into his eyes and nodded miserably.

A short time later, after conversations with more Soviet officers, Paulus and Schmidt walked out of the fetid depths of the Univermag and stepped into a Russian staff car. It took them south over the Tsaritsa Gorge, past the grain elevator, through the ruins of Dar Goya, and on to the suburb of Beketovka where, in a wooden farmhouse, they were ushered into the presence of Gen. Mikhail Shumilov, commander of the Soviet Sixty-fourth Army. Surrounded by cameramen, Shumilov greeted his guests correctly and asked for identification. When Paulus produced his paybook, the Russian pretended to read German and grunted his acceptance.

The Russians offered the Germans food from a tremendous buffet but Paulus balked, insisting that he first receive a guarantee that his men be given proper rations and medical care . Reassured on that point by Shumilov, Paulus and Schmidt finally picked lightly at the feast spread before them.

The primary antagonists of the battle for Stalingrad never got to meet. Deprived by jealous commanders of the chance to capture Paulus himself, Vassili Chuikov had to content himself with lesser fry.{The honor of capturing Paulus caused bitter rivalry among Red Army officers. In postwar reminiscences, several lesser generals and colonels claimed that they had received Paulus’s surrender in the Univermag cellar. In almost all these accounts, Lt. Fyodor Yelchenko’s role was dismissed.} Dressed in a fur jacket, Chuikov sat behind a big desk in his Volga bunker, and glared at the first German to come through the door.

“Are you Seydlitz?” he asked. The officer was Lt. Philip Humbert, Seydlitz’s aide. To cover his error, the flustered Russian interpreter introduced Humbert as a lieutenant colonel, and then brought the rest of the Germans into Chuikov’s presence .

Chuikov was suddenly expansive. “Be glad, general,” he said to Seydlitz, “that you are with us. Stalin will have his parade in Berlin on the first of May. We shall then make peace, and we shall work together with you.”

His questions then came fast. “Why do you look so bad? Why did they not fly you out?” General Krylov broke in to say that he had been flown out of Sevastopol when that city was doomed.

At this point, General Korfes became a talkative spokesman for the German officer corps. “It is the tragic point of world history that the two greatest men of our times, Hitler and Stalin… have been unable to find common grounds so as to beat the mutual enemy, the capitalist world.”

Even Chuikov seemed startled by this declaration. Seydlitz grabbed Korfes’s arm and cried: “Why don’t you stop talking?”

Korfes could not be stilled. “After all, I feel entitled to say this because it is the truth.”

Seydlitz-Kurzbach and General Pfeiffer lapsed into a fretful silence, marred by each man’s occasional weeping. Chuikov tried to make his prisoners more comfortable by ordering food and tea, which they gratefully accepted. After more polite conversation, the Germans were escorted to the Volga shore and a battered Ford which took them across the ice to captivity. Behind them, their German troops faced a mixed reception from the Russian captors.

On the summit of Mamaev Hill, Lt. Pyotr Deriabin led a company of soldiers into German trenches. Intent on looting, the Soviet troops shot at random into men who raised their hands in surrender, then stripped the bodies of watches and other valuables.