Europe Central (66 page)

15

At 2215 hours that same dreary night, a radio transmission came from our Führer: Sixth Army is temporarily surrounded by Russian forces. I know Sixth Army and your Commander-in-Chief, so I have no doubt that in this difficult situation you will stand bravely fast. You must know I am doing everything possible to relieve you. I will issue my instructions at the proper time. ADOLF HITLER.

Then he was happy again. Our Führer still believed in him. Our Führer’s confidence was as vital to him as is gasoline to our troops at Stalingrad.

They asked him what they should do.

The left side of his face twitched.

They looked at him.

We must convince each soldier of his superiority, said white-gloved Lieutenant-General Paulus.

16

Another Ju-52, black cross visible on the canted wing, came hurtling downward, wheels already extended, black smoke spreading crazily from the cockpit; then came the crash, the explosion, the red flames in the snow. His soldiers groaned.

Standing fast is all very well, he remarked to no one, but not for inadequate forces deployed on excessively wide sectors.

Yes, sir, said Major-General Schmidt. Did you see this dispatch? The Führer’s just come back to Wolf’s Lair. He says he’s confident about our situation.

17

They preserved themselves quite well and cheerfully until Christmas, each of their
Nebelwerfer
shells as heavy as a half-grown child. Comrade Stalin is said to have been quite astonished at the effectiveness of their defense. For this we must credit Paulus, at least in part, for it was he who kept studying the situation maps, drawing up defensive concentration points for each subsector. Eleventh Corps and Fourteenth Panzer would be drawn in
here
and
here,
on the east bank of the Don. The west bank he’d relinquish, for now. The men believed in him; they trusted that he would get them out. He who had always been cursed by his ability to foresee the murkiest potentialities of every move on the chessboard now found himself not yet checkmated but checked, to be sure; he was a white king thinly screened by pawns. He told his officers: Don’t worry. I’ll assume full responsibility.—Truth to tell, he still thought that he could hold, given sufficient exertion. Soon he’d be granted permission to initiate Operation Winter Storm, followed by Operation Thunderclap. (He longed for the privilege of one last conference at Headquarters Werewolf or Headquarters Wolf’s Lair; he longed to fall down on his knees, upraise his arms, and cry out: Without you, my Führer, there’s no hope.) His triumph at Kharkov last spring now seemed to him to have been the result of fanatical steadfastness pure and simple: He’d said no to Twenty-eighth Soviet Army, and Twenty-eighth Soviet Army had stopped dead. It was then that he’d injected his tanks into the bleeding enemy wound at Balakleya. Why hadn’t he been made Field-Marshal after that? (Superior will, he’d once been instructed by Field-Marshal von Reichenau, is as effective as a pistol held to an R-girl’s head!) And now the enemy concluded Operation Saturn against Rostov and Millerovo.

First the maps, then a cigarette, then Coca. He wrote her another of his rare letters, saying:
At the moment I’ve got a really difficult problem on my hands, but I hope to solve it soon.

Just then he heard a melody. On the icy street, a soldier was playing Beethoven on a grand piano which someone had trundled out of a destroyed house. He played quite well; it was the Fifth Piano Concerto, the dear old “Emperor.” A hundred soldiers stood around the pianist listening, with blankets wrapped around their heads against the cold. They were his young girl-faced boys whose belts of creaking leather had frozen to their uniforms. Some were smiling. The chords echoed like a fusillade, then flew away into the snow-choked ravines of Stalingrad, and as they flew they became even lovelier than the multicolored fireworks of the enemy rockets. Paulus could hear them three blocks away. He longed to come and stand in the crowd with the others, but feared to destroy their pleasure. The field telephone was already whispering like Ukrainian cornfields; there’d been an incursion on his southeast perimeter.

Nowadays he counted a great deal on Field-Marshal von Manstein, who’d installed himself at the emergency headquarters at Novocherkask. Under his command, General Hoth and the surviving Romanian formations were partitioning off some of the Russian attacks. He’d heard it said that von Manstein was one of the few who could still keep the Führer’s mind on course. Like Paulus, he’d faced difficulties, but in the end he’d won out; he’d penetrated Fort Stalin, which was why the Führer had made him Field-Marshal. As for his whispered words in the shower at Wolf’s Lair, well, we all have our bad days. In Gehlen’s assessment, he was
one of the finest soldiers of this century.
That was why Operation Thunderclap would surely succeed. In the meantime, one did what one could.

His officers unanimously (if we exclude the pointed abstention of Schmidt) begged him to request a withdrawal, so he did; it would have to be to the southwest, which meant weakening his northern perimeter in preparation. If they did get out, vastly superior enemy forces would be waiting to engage them on the snowy plains. Not minimizing these disadvantages, he presented the proposal to our Führer, who of course withheld permission for any breakout. Paulus felt married to Stalingrad now.

He extracted Fourth Corps of Fourth Panzer Army from its now untenable position and regrouped it along the southern line in preparation for Operation Thunderclap. First defense, then counterattack, just as soon the Luftwaffe could supply us. He had also begun waiting for the convoy troops of the Rollbahn to send us sheepskins, portable heaters and above all gasoline; first reinforce the perimeter, with tanks or else the snow-covered wreckage of tanks; then . . .

The signals intelligence report said that the Reds no longer troubled to use even their two-digit cipher, so contemptuously sure were they of the outcome. No fewer than twenty-four formations had closed in. By the end of November, Army Group Don warned him that one hundred and forty-three formations were now in the zone. Field-Marshal von Manstein scolded him by teleprinter: The best chance for an independent breakout has already been missed. But Paulus, now promoted to Colonel-General, improved his strongpoints to perfection. Wherever they could, the soldiers of Sixth Army built ring-mounds around themselves, even if only of rubble; thus they emulated the fashion of the Russian peasant houses. Upon learning of each incursion (and he was kept very well informed; he retained visual command of his front), he dispatched reserves pulled from other sectors, and off they went to die, gripping the stanchions of their open lorries, guns beside them and pointing upward. The enemy, leaping through snowy gaps in ruined walls, kept getting likewise annihilated. Soon all that would be left of them were snapshots of young men in summer, inanely waving from atop their planes or tanks. In the small hours of those December nights the teleprinter at Gumrak chattered SECRET and, for instance, No.421026/42, and
PERSONAL & IMMEDIATE
; often it was our Führer himself, commanding: will be held and kept in operation at all costs and to the last man.

Generals must obey orders just like any other soldier, our Führer had said.

After teleprinter consultations with Field-Marshal von Manstein, he marked the map: First Fourth Panzer Army and Forty-eighth Panzer Corps would rip open the enemy’s siege lines, right here where just today through his field-glasses he’d seen breath-smoke rising from frozen trenches like dreams (dreams of what? of holding hands with an R-girl?); then he’d pull everyone together for the counterstrike; we’d flee toward Donskaya Tsaritsa . . . Dreading the look in Schmidt’s face when he mentioned withdrawal, he interred the map in a black folder whose center was stamped Geheime Kommandosache, military secret, and whose lower right quadrant of it was stamped: Top secret! For officers only!

He summoned his adjutant, Colonel Adam, to take dictation.—Please lock the door, he said.

By your order, Herr Colonel-General!

Where’s that OKW liaison fellow?

He’s in Major-General Schmidt’s office, sir.

Those two are quite friendly, without a doubt, he said, and Colonel Adam made no reply.

Very good. This is for Field-Marshal von Manstein’s eyes only. Are you ready?

Yes, sir.

Dear Field-Marshal,
he began,
I beg permission to acknowledge your signal of 24.11.42 and to thank you for the help you propose giving.
Do you have that down?

Yes, sir.

In the entire zone between Marinovka and the Don there are nothing but flimsy German protective screens. The way to Stalingrad lies open to the Russian tanks and motorized forces.

My God, sir! I—

In this difficult situation I recently sent the Führer a signal asking for freedom of action should it become necessary. I have no means of proving that I should only issue such an order in an extreme emergency and can only ask you to accept my word for this.

Yes, sir.

I have received no direct reply to this signal.

Yes, sir.

As I see it, the main assaults on our northern front have still to come, as the enemy has roads and railroads to . . .

Yes, sir?

To bring up reinforcements. I still believe, however, that the army can hold out for a time.

Heil Hitler! Yes, sir!

As I am being bombarded every day with numerous inquiries about the future, which are more than understandable, I should be grateful if I—

Do you need to rest, sir?

Could be provided with more information than hitherto in order to increase the confidence of my men.

Yes, sir.

Allow me to say, Herr Field-Marshal, that I regard your leadership as a guarantee,
and can you finish it, please, Adam? You’ll know how to end it properly . . .

Yes, sir.

Are you finished? Then bring it here for my signature. You know, Adam, sometimes you remind me of my son Friedrich. He’s a very brave and energetic young man. Doubtless we’d better add an apology for its being in long-hand. All right, seal it up. Find a trustworthy officer and have him fly this out to Army Group Don Headquarters.

By your order, Herr Colonel-General! Shall I take it to Major-General Schmidt?

What for?

To be approved, sir.

I believe I told you that this is for Field-Marshal von Manstein’s eyes only.

Yes, sir.

You may go.

He tried to close his eyes, but a quarter of an hour later, Lieutenant-General Jaenecke, who was not only a loyal subordinate but a friend, was already knocking on his door yet again to plead for a breakout, insisting: We’ll go through the Russians like a hot knife through butter!

That is beyond doubt, but we must follow the Führer’s word, he replied.

It was only natural that men such as Jaenecke romanticize what lay ahead. (What actually did? Alimentary dystrophy, also known as starvation.) Field-Marshal von Reichenau’s ghost overhung them all. He’d reminded Paulus somewhat of his own father, who could have done almost anything. Who could forget the way that von Reichenau had literally led our charge at Kiev? Still, charges, splendid as they are, only succeed when one has reserves—not to mention a place to charge to.

Von Reichenau, Rommel, and even von Manstein, of them he now heard it said that they would simply have gone ahead, evacuating Stalingrad before the Führer could have forbidden it. Even Jaenecke had implied this in their little talk. Well, that might be so, but didn’t they care about the charges of disloyalty which had already been directed at the leaders of the German Army? Bormann and the others were just looking for an excuse to abolish the General Staff and Nazify everything. And where did Schmidt fit in with all this? He trusted nobody anymore.

A deputation of his officers came to plead with him to initiate Operation Thunderclap, which was supposed to be top secret and which was on every soldier’s lips; and when he replied that for the time being no breakout could be authorized, they practically exploded around him, just as ice-boulders come dancing up from frozen Russian rivers when we get them under shell-fire; he explained to them that this topic no longer lay under discussion, because they themselves had resisted withdrawal to the Chir when he’d broached the matter with them last month; he would therefore be obliged to them for not raising it without his prior authorization. General von Hartmann looked the saddest, so Paulus invited him to stay after the others. Clicking his heels and bowing, the guest assured him of the continuing loyalty of everyone concerned.—Of course one must be loyal, Paulus replied. That’s not even a question, Hartmann. A soldier without the justification of obedience is the merest murderer.

Yes, Herr Colonel-General. I keep wondering how all our struggle and grief will appear as viewed from, say, Sirius.

Doubtless the answer will be different depending on whether one puts the question before or after our conquest of the Sirians! Would you like a cigarette, Hartmann?

Thank you, sir. So you believe that obedience justifies this campaign?

It’s incumbent on you to be more careful, Hartmann. I wouldn’t repeat what you just said in front of, say, Major-General Schmidt. You may go.

Lighting a cigarette, he sadly confirmed a death sentence for cowardice. Private Vogel had shot himself in the left hand, hoping to get invalided out of Stalingrad. First Beethoven on the gramophone, then another cigarette, then that letter to Coca:
At the moment I’ve got a really difficult problem on my hands, but I hope to solve it soon.
She would understand; she was a German officer’s wife; after all these years what she most expected of him was that he do his best. When he thought of her nowadays, he felt as if he were trapped within a multifaceted crystal vessel which blinded him with sunlight. As for Private Vogel, he was lashed to the perimeter wire now, ankles joined, knees joined, wrists joined with leather straps buckled tight, a cardboard sign already hung around his chest, to instruct his former comrades that at the convenience of the officer in charge this boy was destined for death by shooting. First administrative matters of this kind, which one gets through as calmly as one can; then another cigarette. It was not yet time to give Coca any grounds for apprehension; doubtless she appreciated his situation quite well. In fact, life in Fortress Stalingrad had become normalized. (This was Fortress Stalingrad: double walls of dirty snow around the railroad tracks, frozen bloody bandages on the dugout floors.) He kept her photograph on the field-desk, the photograph of her with her hair down like the actress Lisca Malbran.