Europe Central

by William T. Vollmann

  Thank God you’re not one of those political generals! All right, then, Paulus, here’s the map. Does this line accurately lay out your position?

  Just a moment . . . Yes, my Führer; it’s entirely correct.

  That’s good. I had to ask, because one can’t trust anyone these days. You wouldn’t believe how my orders get misconstrued! And then they try to hoodwink me. They try to force false information down my throat. But do you know what, Paulus? I’m going to give them all something to choke on!

  By your order, my Führer.

  Well. We have to hope that Stalin can’t repeat his counterattack of 1920, remarked our Führer, who was a military genius. After all, you’re quite right. Keitel! Where the devil is Keitel?

  Here I am, my Führer—

  And now he realized that General Weichs hadn’t been allowed in. The nodding ass probably didn’t even realize why he’d been told to call Weichs here and then send Weichs there. Well, it wasn’t as if Weichs were needed, exactly; it was just that when one was alone it seemed more difficult to hang on to oneself in the Führer’s presence . . .

  Lieutenant-General Paulus is concerned about his front, Keitel. Do you see on this map how shallowly he’s echeloned?

  Yes, my Führer—

  My dear Paulus, if even Keitel can see the danger, nothing more need be said. Keitel, fetch me my eyeglasses over there.

  Crimsoning, Paulus bowed and clicked his heels.

  Now, that’s all very well, and I’ll send help in good time, but for now you’ll just have to make do. How are your sons, by the way?

  As far as I’m aware, they both continue to do their duty to their country and to you, my Führer.

  I’ve heard great things about Friedrich. When the time comes, perhaps he’ll take part in the conquest of England. I’m expressing myself openly on this point. And Ernst is under your command?

  Yes, he is, my Führer.

  An officer?

  Yes, my Führer, with a tank regiment—

  He’s very lucky. I hope he won’t get a swelled head!

  My Führer, I assure you that he receives exactly the same treatment as any other soldier, and to spare him any unpleasantness among his comrades I make a point of never—

  That’s very wise and cautious of you, my dear Paulus. Yes, yes, it’s always better to keep one’s distance. Where he is now?

  Right here on the map, my Führer, about four kilometers from the Mamayev Kurgan. He’s been assigned to the—

  I envy you, Paulus, for having two fine boys who are ready to spend themselves for Germany. They’re twins, aren’t they?

  They are, my Führer.

  When a woman bears twins, that’s pure heroism! Your Coca is fine breeding stock!

  Thank you, my Führer—

  Quite stylish, also. You made a good choice. Don’t worry about either one of your sons. Warlimont complained to you that we’re eighteen percent understrength, didn’t he? You see, I hear everything; I have my feelers out! Well, the troops will be found when we need them. We don’t need them now. But as soon as we’ve choked the life out of Leningrad . . .

  Yes, my Führer, said Paulus. He longed to point out the enemy antitank positions along the Mechetka-Volga axis; where they were, the Führer’s map showed only whiteness. Moreover, Sixth Army’s flanks were screened with inferior satellite troops.

  Frankly, said the Führer with an abrupt change of tone, I’m disappointed that Stalingrad’s still on the map. In a couple of weeks I’m going to make a speech at the Sportpalast. What shall I tell them? Will you have cleaned up Stalingrad by then?

  If the Air Force had only—

  My dear Paulus, we’re in complete agreement about that, the Führer said. Not one of us has been tough enough. The cowards and bleeding-hearts will never understand us . . .

  With a loving smile, he clapped Paulus on the shoulder; and Paulus experienced what Major-General Schmidt liked to call the greatest happiness any of our contemporaries can experience—that of serving a genius.

  8

  He stood on a plain of rubble and discussed the situation with Lieutenant-General Pfeiffer. Schmidt was at his shoulder listening. His assault of the thirteenth had won Sadovaya Station and the edge of Minim. It had, in fact, been a perfect attack, and if Coca were here he would have told her exactly how he’d arrayed his divisions and why he’d closed his pincers where he did; after the war it would be pleasant to give a lecture about it to the officer cadets. The next stage was to take the summit of the Mamayev Kurgan. He’d achieved multiple penetrations along the entire Red front, his spearheads swelling outwards like the arms of an Iron Cross, then linking up to encircle the enemy in convenient-sized strangleholds. Now the enemy was Thirteenth Soviet Guards; they were harassing him from the eastern bank. Very well; he would take Stalingrad inch by inch and never let it go.

  Hatchcovers up, his tanks paraded down the ruined streets, crushing rubble which sparkled blindingly under the dusty white sky. Whiteness glared through the hollow vertebral columns of charred buildings. White dust marked their footfalls.

  Not much to report, Herr Lieutenant-General. We’ve captured the Univermag department store. And we’ve killed Fedoseyev and his staff—

  Good. Were there any maps?

  I’ll check with Section Intelligence, Herr Lieutenant-General.

  Report back to me.

  Herr Lieutenant-General . . .

  What is it?

  They keep digging in their tanks so we can’t see them, and then—

  I’m aware of that. Would more ammunition make a difference?

  Yes, sir.

  I’ll do what I can for you. Now, which group liquidated Fedoseyev?

  Here are their names, sir.

  I’ll put them all in for decorations.

  By your order, Herr Lieutenant-General!

  A soldier screamed, and blood came beautifully from his heart. The rubble clinked faintly. It was no use trying to find the sniper.

  On that same day, 21.9.42, he destroyed two hostile brigades and a regiment, razing the enemy strongpoints with his tanks, crushing those screaming Russians under his treads. He instructed Major-General Schmidt to put more pressure on Headquarters about our ammunition situation. He sent a postcard to Field-Marshal von Reichenau’s widow, the Countess von Maltzan, assuring her that her husband’s name remained on Sixth Army’s lips. And now he must prepare to attack the Red October Tractor Works.

  Two nights later, he celebrated his birthday with a few of his staff officers while a counterattack of Siberians wrested a few meters of Volga frontage out of his hands. He obliterated those Siberians, of course. Until he had the Volga he couldn’t split the Reds’ defenses. He had repeatedly drawn everyone’s attention to that fact. But his exhausted men couldn’t recover the ground they’d lost. (Somehow we’ll manage, sir, Major-General Schmidt consoled him.) He understood, forgave; he permitted them to remain in place, with their weapons at the ready. Had he acted any differently, the way that the Field-Marshal von Reichenau, for instance, would have acted, let alone Schörner or those other hatchet-men, they’d have been quite shocked. But they were not even thankful; whatever fate sends us quickly becomes us, and we grow blind to what we might otherwise have been. And how else should it be? If we could see ourselves as capable of being different, then how resentful, or else in the opposite case how fearful that would leave us!

  He took the long view. He felt extreme apprehension about the future security of his deep northern flank. It was unwise for us to rely upon the Romanians. He couldn’t explain that to Coca, of course.

  First the birthday cake from OKW, then toasts all around. Retiring to his quarters, he lit a cigarette and began reading through the signals reports. Later on he’d open the card from Coca, which had actually arrived on last week’s airlift. Apparently the Russians were now digging in seventy rifle divisions and eighty armored formations, although where they’d gotten them nobody knew. To wipe them out, he might have to draw furt
her manpower from his already attenuated flank troops. His vision blurred; his ageing eyes were having trouble focusing on the dispositions. Our Führer had demonstrated to him how necessary it was to complete Operation Heron soon, in order to link up with Army Group A before winter. And doubtless the Führer was receiving records of his behavior! For all he knew, Schmidt was one of the people reporting on him. Moreover, that annoying Colonel-General Richtofen at Air Fleet Four, a man he’d always treated decently, kept ringing up to advise him: Just one more push, my dear Paulus.—One more push! What did he know about it? And why wasn’t Air Fleet Four darkening the skies of Stalingrad as much as they used to? Nonetheless, on 29.9.42, lighting another cigarette, he sent in Thirty-eighth Infantry, One Hundredth Infantry, Sixtieth Motorized and his best-rested regiments of Sixteenth Panzer, hoping to choke off the enemy’s Orlovsky salient, which he did on 7.10.42, spending lives by the thousand in order to achieve this necessary result: He’d now compressed the Russians’ front to a maximum depth of twenty-five hundred meters. They were truly finished now.

  The aerial reconnaissance report informed him of a large enemy ammunition dump on the east bank of the Volga, just opposite the Red October Works. He requested that the Luftwaffe excise it, and there were two bombing raids, but no one could tell him whether it had been wiped out; it might have been camouflaged.

  Again the Romanians warned him that they were not receiving full supplies. Evidently they counted on his sympathy, since Coca was a country-woman of theirs. He promised to inform OKW (and did in fact inform Schmidt). Resupply, unfortunately, did not lie entirely within his power. Moreover, he was well aware that OKW was naturally inclined when resources were scarce to favor us over our allies, due to a certain variation in the latters’ fighting qualities.

  He spied new enemy antiaircraft regiments near the Volga islands . . .

  He was not a political general, but he’d heard secretly through a subordinate of Warlimont’s that the Führer meant to give him General Jodl’s position as soon as he’d taken Stalingrad.

  9

  The second assault likewise went badly. The enemy repelled him with machine-guns and Molotov cocktails. But his spearheads reached the Volga. This really meant the end for the Red Army; he was thrilled when he thought of what Coca would say. She, who’d grown up with only the best opportunities and possessions, deserved this triumph now. In six weeks at the outside he’d be telling her all about it; that was beyond doubt; and Coca, whose reflected movements in the mirror when she was brushing her hair still took his breath away, would understand and approve of all that he’d done. Major-General Schmidt stopped by to express his congratulations in advance, as he put it. Sixth Army had cleared its name! Paulus made a note to ask the orderly whether there would be enough Veuve Clicquot for every officer in Sixth Army to have a glass. Next he resolved the case of Private Dietrich, who’d been condemned to death by shooting because he’d feigned a leg injury. Paulus ordered X-rays; much to Dr. Braunstein’s amazement the tibia was actually fractured; with Bach on the gramophone he cleared all charges against Private Dietrich, considered, smiled a little, and remanded the boy home for six weeks, so that he wouldn’t develop bitter feelings against Sixth Army. That night as he closed his eyes to sleep he could see again those brilliant white-skinned volumes of Pushkin on the bookshelf, with the sun glancing in on Poltava, and once more he wondered where she’d hidden them, and then for the first time he wondered whether she’d ever read any of them, and just before he fell asleep he glimpsed Ernst’s sad, scared, grubby little face peeping in. Ernst was probably grubby again now, like all the other frontline men. Awaking suddenly, Paulus offered up a soundless prayer for the safety of both his sons. Then he ignited the lantern and bent over the enemy situation map (1:300,000 scale). On the sixteenth, as his columns whipped south in an attempt to encircle Sixty-second Soviet Army, an ambush of sunken, camouflaged T-34 tanks blew them to bits. He sent in the five new Pioneer battalions which the Führer had given him. Most of those boys died, unfortunately. On 18.10 his infantry captured the Tramvayna street line. On his inspection tour he spied one of his soldiers twirling round on his finger the blue and red cap of an NKVD officer, doubtless “sent to the rear.” In some jurisdictions those caps were green, he believed. The design was, in his opinion, garish. For some reason, he was unable to put Olga’s new dress out of his mind. The letter from Coca had said: Olga seems to be in good health, although I gather she is having financial troubles. No more trips to Paris for her! Prices are going up everywhere. You wouldn’t believe how much butter costs. The only good news is that Robert has won a prize for his part in the anti-Jewish pantomime. He is such a good child, so intelligent and so willing to please. I hope he won’t get dizzy with success! Frau Reiting has just come to me in tears; apparently her son fell in action at Leningrad. How do you think I can comfort her? She has always been so nice to us, especially to Olga. I will add her to my prayers. I have heard nothing from Friedrich, and am quite worried. Has he written to you? Yesterday a short letter came from Ernst; he says it’s been a long while since he’s seen you. The left side of his mouth twitched a trifle. Surely you could ask someone to find out if he is all right. I still pray for you every day and every night. Has it snowed there yet? All my kisses to you. I continue to believe in you and in our Führer (the last four words he knew she’d written for the censors). Not making his presence known, he ordered that congratulations and cigarettes be distributed all around. His order of the day explained that everything would proceed more smoothly now that the Tramvayna line was in our hands.

  On 21.10 he sent in Seventy-ninth Infantry against the Red October and Barrikady factories. What he really needed to do was shore up General Dumitrescu of Third Romanian Army, but our Führer still had not responded to his request for reinforcements. For now he had to neglect Third Romanian, since the battle on the threshold of the Red October Works required full attention. Specifically, his boys were dying in unusual numbers—as were the Reds, of course. The orderly brought him fresh white gloves on the silver tray. Major-General Schmidt came just to say: We all believe in you, sir.—They were now approaching that moment in any close battle when the wills of attackers and defenders alike have been nearly broken, so that one great effort on one side or the other will suffice to decide the struggle. It was now that he especially regretted the loss of those forces which the Führer had redirected to the Caucasus. But Lieutenant-General Paulus was not a quitting sort of man. Opening his silver cigarette case, he lit a match, trying to work out everything thoroughly, keeping close account of frontage and distribution. It was quite complicated, actually; he almost called in Schmidt to help him. The Dzherzhinskii district was now essentially in our hands; the Red October Works couldn’t resist any longer; that day he called in seven hundred dive-bombing attacks on it; Spartanovka was about to cave in. In that month we find him writing to his old comrade Lutz: The great thing now is to hit the Russian so hard a crack that he won’t recover for a very long time. The sentiment was banal, the goal practical. Of such stuff are effective soldiers made. To Coca he wrote that Ernst’s tank regiment was performing very creditably; unfortunately, there was no time to pay the lad a visit, but she needn’t worry about him; if anything had happened he would have heard. He asked her to send Olga his kisses; he felt it incumbent on him to advise that young lady one more time of the dangers of exceeding one’s resources. To Friedrich, the other son, he wrote a brief letter of love and encouragement; Friedrich was in Africa now with Field-Marshal Rommel. First Beethoven on the gramophone, then a cigarette, then the enemy signals report, courtesy of Fremde Heere Ost, Gruppe I, Army Group B. He had to smile; Major-General Gehlen was so good at being plausible. The analysis of Red Army signals bore out Gehlen’s assertion that the productive capacity of what remained of Russian Europe had been essentially obliterated.

  Shooting rockets out of windows, the Soviet enemy, their ammo belts slung across broken girders, popped up to hurl stick-grenades, then du
cked back into jagged-toothed caves. Soviet factory workers charged with guns in their hands, dying almost uselessly, but not quite, because every time three or a dozen of them fell, a German did, too. There were always more Russians; his prisoners now everlastingly quoted to him the words of Zoya the Partisan, whom we’d executed for sabotage last winter: You can’t hang all hundred and ninety million of us!—There were only eighty million Germans. Last week he’d pointed that out to Schmidt, who merely smiled and replied: I’m sure we’ll manage one way or another, sir.

  First the daily enemy situation report, then the signals intelligence report. Unfortunately, we no longer possessed enough Heinkel-IIIs to continue aerial reconnaissance on as frequent a basis as before. The enemy radio was saying: Keep a tighter grip on your tanks. But what tanks did they have? Toward the end of September, their transmissions had begun very occasionally to refer to some far-off Operation Uranus. Paulus, who had been justly credited for the complete success of Operation Shark, the plan which had tricked Russia with a buildup of forces on the western front just before we launched Barbarossa (even Coca had been impressed), scented danger, not on his own sector, to be sure, but it might well prove to be a threat to Army Group Center. Field-Marshal von Reichenau would have let Group Center take care of itself; Field-Marshal von Reichenau for that matter would not even have bothered to study those enemy transmissions, but Lieutenant-General Paulus, ever considerate and conscientious even to his own detriment, sent a message in cipher to Fremde Heere Ost Gruppe I, Army Group B, to warn them about it. They never replied, which first bewildered, then offended him. He knew that behind his back many generals called him “the office assistant.” They found him womanish; they equated him with that laughably fat and bustling Field-Marshal Keitel at OKW; they said he had no dash, no experience, no right to command Sixth Army. Their opinions shamed him more and more. Nobody except Coca had ever expressed any appreciation for Operation Shark, although it must have saved thousands of German lives. Well, that was their business, but they really ought to be more careful. When Russians are involved, reconnaissance in force will invariably escalate into a general offensive if it succeeds. No one seemed to comprehend this, not even Schmidt. Anyhow, all mentions of Operation Uranus soon faded from enemy communications. Lighting another cigarette, he made a note to query Major-General Gehlen directly about it, just as soon as—