Disaster at Stalingrad

by Peter G. Tsouras

  Roosevelt seemed to sag in his wheelchair:

  We will honour our commitment to the Soviets by continuing to provide as much aid as we can across the Pacific. I just don’t see how we can do more. If the Japanese attack the Russians, there is not much we can do about it.

  King had the last brutal word. ‘The diversion of Japanese naval and army forces in such an attack would only make our job in the Pacific that much easier.’5

  Kotelnikovo, Army Group B Headquarters, 11 October 1942

  This Russian rail station, 73 miles southwest of Stalingrad, was throbbing with activity as one train after another delivered the seven infantry divisions of Manstein’s old 11th Army, veterans of Sevastopol. Interspersed among the troop trains, supply trains were feeding a number of growing depots. Railway engineers were busily extending spurs. Next to arrive were Grossdeutschland and 6th Panzer Divisions (LX Corps) with their 400 T-34s, an amazing sight to the infantry. Eleventh Army now numbered close to 200,000 men. Marching out of the Caucasus to join the army were the four infantry divisions of 17th Army’s V Corps.

  Manstein had prevailed upon Hitler to leave the cleaning up of the Caucasus and Transcaucasus to one German corps and the Romanians and Turks. The victories at Sukhumi and Ordzhonikidze had revitalized the Führer, who claimed the credit for the Soviet collapse since it had happened after he had relieved List and assumed personal command. Then Kleist’s brilliant crushing of the Soviet-British force at Baku had even prompted him to dine with his generals again. Though much of the vast oilfield had been sabotaged, Hitler practically wallowed in the self-justification. He gladly tossed a field marshal’s baton to Kleist.

  The credit line he had promised Manstein seemed to shrink in inverse proportion to the good news he was receiving. At Hitler’s order to throw 11th Army into the Stalingrad fighting, Manstein flew directly to Werewolf and flatly refused the order. ‘What are you worried about? Reichsmarschall Goring is supplying a reinforcement to the front as great as 11th Army. The sheet balances.’ He was referring to the establishment of twenty-two Luftwaffe field divisions, Goring’s brainchild to transform surplus personnel into his own ground army; if Himmler could have one in the Waffen SS, so could Göring.

  Manstein’s response was ‘Sheer nonsense! Where is the Luftwaffe going to find the necessary division, regimental, and battalion commanders?’ For once Hitler had met someone with a personality as forceful and unyielding as his own and one that was immune to his charismatic power. More than one observer noted that Manstein’s ego equalled Hitler’s, but without the irrationality. This battle had already been fought. Against the entire weight of his General Staff and even his favoured Stauffenberg, Hitler had declined to deny Goring, who had proclaimed that he was not going ‘to hand over “his” soldiers, reared in the spirit of National Socialism, to an Army which still had chaplains and was led by officers steeped in the traditions of the Kaiser’.6

  Hitler was clearly on the defensive but for once did not slip into a rage at being countered. Instead, he said, ‘There is Kleist’s 1st Panzer Army that will become available in a few weeks as well.’ It was all Manstein could do not to lecture the Führer of the German Reich like a green lieutenant. He summarized the deployment of forces:

  Protecting most of the long northern arm of our salient from the Don to the Volga are the Romanian 3rd, Hungarian, and 8th Italian Armies. If the Soviets attack in great strength, these forces will collapse. On the southern arm of the salient is the Romanian 4th Army which will do exactly the same thing. None of these allies are reliable in such situations unless they are closely corseted with Germans, which they are not.

  At the apex of the salient 6th Army is slowly wasting away. It has no more reserves while the Soviets keep feeding replacements into the battle. We merely play into his hands by sending more troops into that sausage grinder.

  He said nothing about his secret order to Seydlitz to pull back from close contact with Chuikov’s troops once the inevitable Soviet offensive kicked off. The order, codenamed Operation Quicksilver, was to disengage 6th Army and pull its left flank all the way back to Kalach should the Soviets attack the Romanian 3rd Army in strength. At the same time Hoth’s 4th Panzer Army was also to pull back immediately to reinforce the Romanian 4th Army should the Soviets attack there in strength. 6th Army’s right flank would hook up with 4th Panzer Army’s left flank thus reestablishing a strong front to serve as a springboard for a counterattack once the Soviets had overextended themselves. It was the perfect example of an elastic strategy. Sadly, the panzer corps of both armies had been wasted away in the city fighting for which they had never been intended, and each was lucky to muster the strength of one panzer division.

  The field marshal had also left Seydlitz broad initiative in interpreting orders coming out of OKW. For example, Hitler had ordered all of the horses of 6th Army to be sent westward to cut down on the logistics burden of their support which in bulk exceeded the requirements of the troops by several times. Seydlitz realized that if he was to have any ability to manoeuvre, he would need those horses, for much of the German artillery and logistics services still relied on them. Hitler had also ordered him to employ as infantry any tank troops without tanks. When he received that order, he leapt to his feet and shouted, ‘Wanzig, heller Wanzig! [Madness, sheer madness!] Where does that man think I will find skilled Panzertruppen if and when new tanks arrive?’ The tankers were not used as infantry.

  Manstein went on:

  Across the Volga and north of the Don, the enemy keeps accumulating reserves for the very reason that he recognizes the vulnerability of our salient. If we continue to feed the Stalingrad battle, we do nothing but dissipate our own reserves and lay ourselves open to the obvious counterstroke that will trap everything in the salient in one great pocket.

  We must retain a powerful operational reserve to throw into the battle once the enemy plays his hand. That is why I insist that 11th Army’s strength not be dissipated to deal with local emergencies but that it must be strengthened. And to it must be added 1st Panzer Army as part of the front’s strategic reserve. Mein Fuhrer, you can never be too strong at the decisive point.

  Hitler responded, ‘But I tell you, Manstein, that the Russians are beaten already. The loss of the oilfields at Baku has doomed them. One more push and the whole rotten structure will collapse. Bolshevism is as good as dead.’

  ‘Then, mein Führer, let us make sure and drive a great stake through its heart.’7

  Stavka, 13 October 1942

  The catastrophe in the Caucasus actually accelerated the plan that Zhukov and Vasilevsky had presented to Stalin. The news of the fall of the Caucasus and the Transcaucasian republics had shaken Soviet morale to the core. Time was rapidly slipping away, and with each day, the oil reserves drained away as well. Hitler’s famous intuition had once again proven uncannily prescient. But he had not counted on Stalin’s determination to roll the dice one last time. Only Operation Uranus had a chance of reversing the inevitable.

  The problem was that Uranus had been planned for the end of November. Now it would have to be executed far sooner. Manstein had been correct. Zhukov and Vasilevsky had read the same map, and their eyes had been drawn to the weakness of the flanks at Stalingrad. From the flanks their eyes had moved east to the Don crossing at Kalach. Six weeks more and the armies they would unleash would have been strong enough, but that would have depended on the flood of supplies and equipment, especially the trucks and other logistical means, especially plentiful oil from the south, they would need for the rapid thrust from the Volga to the Don. Now they must make do with what they already had and with what could be stripped from the other fronts to the north, immobilizing the northern forces to a degree that they could not put pressure on the Germans.

  Zhukov was a hard man to beat, but even he knew how their chances of success were dwindling. All the odds seemed to be stacking up in the Germans’ favour. Now even the weather that had so often saved Russia seemed to support the Germa
ns. The torrential rains of the autumn rasputitsa would be falling just as their armies needed firmly frozen ground for their success.

  Now Stalin was truly afraid. He had more to worry about than the Germans. For the first time even those dogs who had licked his boots had cause to believe they had more to fear with Stalin than without. The loss of the Caucasus had done more than stagger the morale of the country. It had cracked the façade of his leadership as no other defeat had. Whispers compared it to the evaporation of the deep-seated faith in the tsar as benevolent ruler anointed by God after his Cossacks had sabred hundreds of peaceful petitioners in the Bloody Sunday Massacre of 1905.8

  There were more than whispers. Abakumov was more than aware of this; he was behind it. In greatest secrecy he was showing Stalin’s Okrana file to members of the Politburo and to senior officers of the Red Army. He had never seen so many shaken men.9

  Stalingrad, 14 October 1942

  Manstein threw the paper down on the floor. Hitler had gone back on his word to keep 11th Army as a front reserve. The order commanding its commitment to the renewed offensive at Stalingrad now lay at the field marshal’s feet.

  Led by four specialized combat engineer battalions especially flown into the city, 90,000 Germans attacked on a 3-mile front to smash their way to the Volga and finally to destroy 62nd Army. Chuikov had thrown a small spanner into the works two days before by launching his own morning counterattack. It had gained 300 yards, but the German counterpunch was near mortal. Everywhere the Germans ground forward, consuming one Soviet division after another. By the end of the day 14th Panzer Division had cut through to the Volga, splitting Chuikov’s army in two.

  Despite this success, Manstein’s attention was still drawn to the flanks where Soviet forces continued to build up like black thunderclouds. He obeyed Hitler’s order only so far as slowly redeploying 11th Army as far forward as the rail hub at Zhutovo station, 55 miles north of Kotelnikovo.

  Stalingrad, 17 October 1942

  Already it was growing cold. The freezing rains had soaked the ruins of the city making life even more miserable for both sides. They continued to fall day after day. The nights now brought frost. Chuikov had more to concern him than a natural phenomenon that apportioned its misery impartially. The huge German guns from Sevastopol had been devastating. They were unlike the German’s aerial bombardment or even their normal artillery fire that simply transformed the urban architecture into a rubble-strewn fortress maze. Seven-ton shells reduced the ruins to mounds of shattered brick and concrete under which only the dead lay.

  The Germans kept smashing their way forward, forcing Chuikov to move his headquarters behind the Red October factory. The one division he received as reinforcement was quickly burning out. The northern element of his command had been reduced to a small cut-off pocket. Sixty-Second Army had been pushed so far back that its heels were almost on the Volga’s edge.

  Alarming information was coming in. Many units were asking for help, wanting to know what to do, and how. It is probable that divisional and regimental commanders were making these approaches in order to find out whether the 62nd Amy Command still existed. We gave a short, clear-cut answer to these questions: ‘Fight with everything you’ve got, but stay put!’10

  And they did. One German regimental commander talking on the field telephone with his forward elements could hear the Russians shouting, ‘Urrah!’ A Soviet regimental commander when his command post was being overrun did not hesitate to call down a Katyusha strike on his own position. The German fighting men gave the Russians the ultimate soldier’s salute when they said, ‘the dogs fight like lions’.11

  If there was a bright spot for Chuikov, it was that Vassily Zaitsev had been knocking off a half dozen fascists a day. The young sniper’s kill score had already reached forty; he had become the darling of the war correspondents and the pride of the 62nd Army. The sniper team he had trained was killing another dozen or so Germans every day. Although the Germans would lose far more men in the course of the Rattenkrieg, the nature of sniper kills, coming out of nowhere to strike down men who thought they were safe, was far more unnerving to German morale.

  Chuikov would have been immensely relieved to know that the build-up for Operation Uranus was steadily progressing, but even he had not been informed of it for security reasons. The Red Army was making such good use of concealment and deception measures that Gehlen’s Foreign Armies East seriously underestimated its scale. It was paying far more attention to the build-up in front of Army Group Centre. This was Operation Mars, designed to encircle a German army on that front at the same time as Uranus was to encircle 6th Army. Nor did Gehlen detect that the forces assembled for Mars were now being bled away to support Uranus. Stavka had no choice. There were just not enough resources to support two major operations. There was no question as to which was more important — Stalingrad. Operation Mars was cancelled.

  Ironically, Hitler had come to the same conclusion three days before when he issued Operations Order No. 1, suspending all offensive action on the Eastern Front outside of the fighting for Stalingrad. All the resources of the front were to be directed to the city on the Volga.12

  Makhachkala, 17 October 1942

  The lead elements of 1st Panzer Army had already passed this town on the Caspian just north of the Caucasus. The highway and parallel railroad from Baku had been too far inland to see the sea, but they now turned east to Makhachkala and the Caspian. Suddenly the men could see the blue waters disappearing into the horizon. It was a grand sight that few of them would forget, and it lifted their spirits.

  Kleist’s objective was Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga 240 miles away. After what they had been through, 240 miles was nothing, especially since many of them rode in the backs of American trucks, ate American canned food, and wore excellent American boots captured in the dumps at Baku. Most remarkable, though, was that Kleist was able to reequip all his panzer shortfalls with American and British tanks from the same depots. The men had even composed a ditty of appreciation for all their comforts, ending with a resounding refrain, ‘Danke sehr, Herr Roosevelt!’13

  Stavka, Moscow, 18 October 1942

  Stalin raged, banged the table. He had just received the joint cable from Roosevelt and Churchill that the resumption of the Arctic convoys was impossible. The excuse was the collapse of morale among the merchant seamen of both countries. ‘Put a few hundred up against the wall, if you want to improve the morale of the rest!’ he shouted.

  Gumrak Airfield, Stalingrad, 20 October 1942

  Oberjäger Friedrich Pohl was a very calm man as befitted a successful sniper.14 His arrival at the airfield southwest of Stalingrad had tested this self-possession as his Ju 52 transport had weaved and dodged repeated attacks by Soviet aircraft from the moment it crossed the lower Don. Had it not been for the daring Me 109 pilots escorting his transport, he would be dead. As deadly a shot as he was, his Kar 98k rifle with a 5x scope remained useless in its leather case.

  The talents of this 27-year old Austrian had become in great demand as the Soviet snipers had been exacting a greater and greater toll on German lives and morale in the fighting for the city. Like every other German soldier on the Eastern Front, he had heard of the desperate fighting for the city. It was a sniper’s happy hunting ground. Obviously they had need of his skill. That’s all his company commander could tell him as he departed his Gebirgsjäger regiment. Waiting for him was a young General Staff officer who introduced himself as Captain von Boeselager, aide to 6th Army Chief of Staff Tresckow. German privates were not used to being greeted by officers upon arrival in a new assignment, especially such exalted ones.

  He was even more surprised when the captain escorted him into a tent. Pointing to a major’s uniform, he ordered Pohl to put it on. During the ride into the city, smoking and rumbling with the ongoing German assault, they had the most interesting conversation.

  ‘Pohl, you have been temporarily promoted to major for a special mission. Henceforth, you
are Major Werner König.’

  ‘Who is that, Herr Hauptmann?’

  ‘He’s head of the sniper school at Zossen. That will be your cover. You are not to associate closely with anyone not in the line of duty. I will have a sergeant as an escort and spotter for you.’

  ‘If I may ask, sir, what is the reason for all this acting?’

  ‘As well you might, Oberjäger, or I should say, “Herr Major!”’

  Staying calm while stalking Russians was one thing, but to be addressed as an officer completely flustered Pohl.

  Boeselager had personally selected Pohl; it had been a difficult search to find an expert sniper and someone with a burning grievance. In Pohl he had found both. His combat record was clear, but the grievance was buried deep and took some finding: Pohl’s childhood sweetheart had been declared a Mischling and disappeared into the hands of the Gestapo.

  In response to Pohl’s question, Boeselager explained, ‘We want you to hunt down and kill Vassili Zaitsev. He is the best of the enemy snipers. The Russians have made a great propaganda story about him. We will build a similar story around you as Major König.’ Then he turned an intently focused face on Pohl. ‘You must kill this Russian.’

  The captain then thought to himself, ‘And then we will want you do something else for us.’15

  Beketovka Bulge, 22 October 1942

  Here and there the surviving men of artillery and antitank units among others were withdrawn from the death machine of Stalingrad. Taken to the east bank of the Volga, they were fed and deloused, given hot baths and rest. Then their shrunken ranks were filled with replacements. The reconstructed units were sent back across the Volga to the Beketovka Bulge, the remaining Soviet lodgement, 5 miles south of the city, held by 64th Army. Into the bulge were carefully fed the new tank and mechanized corps of the 51st and 57th Armies where they were hidden in villages and gullies with great skill. Although strict operational security ensured that they were told nothing, the smell of an offensive was in the air. The Red Air Force was doing its best to make sure that any German reconnaissance flight over the build-up area was a death sentence.