What was at stake was the fate of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Rumania.
What was at stake was the fate of the Russian peasants and workers, the freedom of Russian thought, literature and science.
Stalin was moved. At this moment the future power of the State had merged with his will.
His greatness and genius did not exist independently of the greatness of the State and the armed forces. Only if the State was victorious would his scientific and philosophical works remain an object of study and admiration for millions of people.
He was connected to Yeremenko.
‘What’s up then?’ said Stalin abruptly. ‘Have the tanks gone in yet?’
Sensing the irritation in Stalin’s voice, Yeremenko quickly put out his cigarette.
‘No, comrade Stalin. Tolbukhin’s just finishing the softening-up barrage. The infantry have cleaned up the front line, but the tanks haven’t yet entered the breach.’
Stalin cursed loudly and put down the receiver. Yeremenko relit his cigarette and telephoned the commander of the 51st Army.
‘Why haven’t the tanks gone in yet?’
Holding the receiver in one hand, Tolbukhin was mopping the sweat from his chest with the other. His jacket was unbuttoned; under the open collar of his immaculately white shirt you could see the heavy folds of fat at the base of his neck. A little short of breath, he answered with the unhurried calm of an overweight man who understands in every cell of his body that too much exertion is bad for him.
‘The commander of the tank corps has just reported to me: there are enemy batteries on his path that are still operational. He asked for a few minutes’ delay to neutralize them with artillery fire.’
‘Send the tanks in at once,’ said Yeremenko curtly. ‘And report back in three minutes.’
‘Yes, comrade Colonel-General.’
Yeremenko wanted to curse Tolbukhin. Instead, he asked suddenly:
‘How come you’re breathing so heavily? Is something the matter with you?’
‘No, no. I’m fine, Andrey Ivanovich. I’ve only just had breakfast.’
‘Get on with it then,’ said Yeremenko and put down the receiver. ‘He’s just had breakfast – he’s out of breath. I ask you!’ He launched into a volley of expressive and imaginative curses.
The phone rang at the observation post. You could barely hear it over the artillery fire. Novikov knew it was the army commander and that he would order him to send in his tanks at once.
He heard Tolbukhin through, thought, ‘Just as I guessed,’ and said: ‘Yes, comrade Lieutenant-General. Immediately.’
Then he smiled in the direction of Getmanov. ‘All the same, we do just need another four minutes.’
Three minutes later, Tolbukhin phoned again. Now he was no longer gasping for breath.
‘Is this a joke, comrade Colonel? Why is it I can still hear artillery fire? Carry out my orders at once!’
Novikov ordered his telephonist to connect him to Lopatin, the commander of the artillery regiment. He heard Lopatin’s voice, but remained silent himself; watching the second-hand of his watch, he waited for the four minutes to elapse.
‘What a man!’ exclaimed Getmanov with unfeigned admiration.
A minute later, when the artillery fire had died down, Novikov put on his headphones and called the commander of the leading brigade.
‘Byelov?’
‘Yes, comrade Corps Commander.’
Twisting his mouth into a furious, drunken cry, Novikov screamed:
‘Byelov! Attack!’
The mist thickened with blue smoke. The air was alive with the rumble of motors as the tank corps entered the breach in the enemy front.
11
The aims of the Russian offensive became evident to the German commanders when, at dawn on 20 November, the artillery opened fire in the Kalmyk steppe and the shock units disposed to the south of Stalingrad attacked the 4th Rumanian Army on Paulus’s right flank.
The tank corps on the extreme left of the Soviet grouping entered the breach in the front between Lakes Tsatsa and Barmantsak, turned to the north-west, and advanced towards Kalach where it was to link up with the tank and cavalry corps from the Don and South-Western Fronts.
On the afternoon of 20 November, the Soviet units advancing from Serafimovich reached a point slightly to the north of Surovikino, threatening Paulus’s lines of communication.
Paulus’s 6th Army was, however, still unaware that it was threatened with encirclement. At six o’clock that evening Paulus’s headquarters informed Baron von Weichs, the commanding officer of Army Group B, that they were intending to continue reconnaissance activities in Stalingrad on the following day.
Later that evening Paulus received an order from von Weichs to break off offensive operations in Stalingrad. He was to concentrate tank units, infantry units and anti-tank weapons along his left flank, disposing them in depth in order to withstand an attack from the north-west.
This order, received by Paulus at 9.00 p.m., marked the end of the German offensive in Stalingrad. It was, however, rendered meaningless by the speed of events.
On 21 November the Soviet units advancing from Serafimovich and Kletskaya effected a ninety-degree turn, joined together, and moved towards the Don to the north of Kalach, directly in Paulus’s rear.
That same day, forty Soviet tanks appeared on the high west bank of the Don, only a few kilometres from Paulus’s command-post at Golubinskaya. Another group of tanks seized a bridge over the Don without firing a shot: the German defenders mistook them for a training detachment equipped with captured Soviet tanks that often used this bridge. Soviet tanks then entered Kalach itself. And so the first lines of the encirclement of the two German armies in Stalingrad, Paulus’s 6th Army and Hoth’s 4th Tank Army, were sketched in. One of Paulus’s finest units, the 384th Infantry Division, was disposed to the north-west to defend Paulus’s rear.
Meanwhile, Yeremenko’s forces were advancing from the south. They had crushed the 29th German Motorized Division, smashed the 6th Rumanian Army Corps, and were now advancing, between the Chervlennaya and Donskaya Tsaritsa rivers, on the Stalingrad-Kalach railway line.
At dusk, Novikov’s tanks reached a strongly fortified Rumanian outpost. This time Novikov did not delay. He chose not to make use of the darkness in order to concentrate his forces before attacking.
At Novikov’s orders, the tanks, self-propelled guns, armoured transports and troop-carriers all simultaneously switched on their headlights. Hundreds of dazzling lights tore through the darkness. A vast mass of vehicles appeared out of the steppes, deafening the Rumanian defences with the rumble of engines, the chatter of machine-gun fire and the roar of guns, blinding them with stabbing light, paralysing them with panic.
After a few brief skirmishes, the tanks continued their advance.
On the morning of 22 November, they reached Buzinovka. That same evening, east of Kalach, in the rear of the two German armies, the vanguard linked up with the tanks that had broken through from the north. By 23 November Soviet infantry units had taken up position on the rivers Shir and Aksay, securing the flanks of the shock units.
The objective defined by the Supreme Command had been attained: the German armies had been encircled within 100 hours.
What then determined the final outcome of these manoeuvres? What human will became the instrument of destiny?
At 6.00 p.m. on 22 November Paulus radioed the following message to the Headquarters of Army Group B:
‘The army has been encircled. Despite heroic resistance, the whole Tsaritsa valley, the railway line from Sovietskaya to Kalach, the bridge across the Don and the high ground on the west bank are now in Russian hands . . . The ammunition situation is acute. We have six days’ rations. I request a free hand in case we should fail to establish a perimeter defence. The situation may compel me to abandon Stalingrad itself together with the northern sector of the front . . .’
On the night of 22–23 November Paulus receiv
ed orders from Hitler to name the zone occupied by his troops ‘Fortress Stalingrad’. The preceeding order had read: ‘The Army Commander will transfer his headquarters to Stalingrad itself. The 6th Army will establish a perimeter defence and await further orders.’
After a conference between Paulus and his corps commanders, Baron von Weichs telegraphed the Supreme Command: ‘In spite of the terrible weight of responsibility I feel in taking this decision, I have to inform you that I fully support General Paulus’s request to withdraw the 6th Army.’
General Zeitzler, the Chief of the General Staff of the German land forces, who had been in constant liaison with von Weichs, fully shared the views of Paulus and von Weichs. He considered it quite impossible to supply such vast numbers of troops by air.
At 2.00 a.m. on 24 November, Zeitzler informed von Weichs that he had finally succeeded in persuading Hitler to abandon Stalingrad. The order for the 6th Army to break out would be given by Hitler later that morning.
The only telephone link between Army Group B and the 6th Army was cut soon after 10.00 a.m.
They were expecting to receive Hitler’s order to withdraw at any minute. As it was essential to act quickly, von Weichs decided to take the responsibility upon himself.
As the radio message was being prepared, the director of the signals centre heard the following message addressed to Paulus by the Führer himself:
‘The 6th Army has been temporarily encircled by Russian troops. I have decided to concentrate the Army in the following zone: North Stalingrad, Kotluban, heights 137 and 135, Marinovka, Tsybenko, South Stalingrad. The Army can be assured that I shall do everything in my power both to keep it supplied and to break the encirclement. I know the bravery of the 6th Army and its commanding officer and I am confident that it will do its duty.’
The will of Hitler was the instrument of destiny for both Paulus’s Army and the Third Reich itself. At his command, a new page of German military history was written by Paulus, von Weichs and Zeitzler, by the commanding officers of corps and battalions, by the German soldiers themselves, by all those who, albeit reluctantly, executed his orders.
12
After a hundred hours of combat, units from the South-Western Front, the Don Front and the Stalingrad Front had linked up.
The Soviet tanks met under a dark winter sky on the outskirts of Kalach. The snow-covered steppes were scorched by shell-bursts and ploughed up by the treads of hundreds of vehicles. The heavy machines tore on through clouds of snow, sending up a white veil into the air. Where they turned particularly sharply, the veil was dotted with fragments of frozen dirt.
The fighters and ground-support aircraft from the other side of the Volga flew low over the steppe. You could hear the thunder of heavy artillery from the north-east; the dark, cloudy sky was lit by flashes of dim lightning.
Two T-34s stopped next to one another beside a small wooden house. Excited by their success and the nearness of death, the dirty soldiers greedily gulped in the frosty air; after the stench of oil and fumes in their tanks this was a great joy. Pushing back their black leather helmets, they entered the house. The commander of the tank that had come from Lake Tsatsa took a half-litre bottle of vodka out of his pocket. A woman in huge felt boots and a padded jacket put some glasses on the table. Her hands were trembling.
‘Oy, oy! We never thought we’d come out alive,’ she sobbed. ‘How the guns fired and fired! I spent two days and one night in the cellar.’
Two more soldiers came into the room. They were squat and broad-shouldered – like pegtops.
‘Valera! See what they’ve brought? Well, I think we’ve got something to go with it,’ said the commander of the tank that had come from the north.
Valera plunged his hand into a deep pocket in his overalls and pulled out a piece of smoked sausage wrapped up in a dirty page from an army newspaper. He began to divide it up, carefully picking up the pieces of white fat that fell out and pressing them back into place with his dirty fingers.
The soldiers happily began drinking. One of them, his mouth full of sausage, smiled and said: ‘Your vodka and our sausage – we’ve linked up!’
This joke went down well. Full of warmth and comradeliness, the soldiers repeated it to one another and laughed.
13
The commander of the tank from the south reported by radio to his squadron commander that the link-up had been effected near Kalach. He added that the crew of the other tank were splendid fellows and that they’d drunk a bottle of vodka together.
This report was rapidly passed back. Three minutes later Karpov repeated it to Novikov.
Novikov could sense the love and admiration that now surrounded him at headquarters. They had carried out their task according to schedule, and they had sustained almost no casualties.
After reporting to Yeremenko, Nyeudobnov gave Novikov a long squeeze of the hand. His usually bilious and irritable eyes looked bright and gentle.
‘You see what miracles our lads can accomplish when we’ve eliminated the hidden enemies and saboteurs,’ he said.
Getmanov embraced Novikov. He looked round at all the officers, orderlies, drivers, radio operators and cypher clerks, gave a sob and said in a loud voice:
‘Thank you, Pyotr Pavlovich! A Russian thank-you, a Soviet thank-you! I thank you as a Communist. I take off my hat to you.’
Once again he embraced and kissed a deeply-moved Novikov.
‘You prepared everything. Your foresaw everything. You studied your men. And this is the fruit of your labour.’
Novikov felt both overjoyed and embarrassed. He waved a file of reports at Getmanov.
‘I’ll tell you what I foresaw! The man I counted on was Makarov. But Makarov dawdled, deviated from his assigned route and wasted an hour and a half in an unnecessary skirmish on his flank. As for Byelov, I was quite certain that he would just forge straight ahead without paying the least attention to his flanks and rear. And what did he do? On the second day, instead of outflanking a centre of enemy resistance, he got bogged down in an operation he undertook against some artillery and infantry units and even went over to the defensive. He wasted eleven hours. It was Karpov who was the first to arrive in Kalach. He went flat out! He didn’t once look back. He didn’t give a damn what was happening on his flanks. He was the one who broke through the Germans’ lines of communication. So much for my study of men! So much for what I foresaw! I thought he’d be so busy securing his flanks that I’d have to drive him on with a cudgel.’
Getmanov smiled.
‘All right, all right. We all know the value of modesty. That’s something Stalin’s taught us.’
Novikov was happy. He thought he really must love Yevgenia Nikolaevna if he thought of her so much on a day like this. He kept looking round as if she might appear any moment.
‘And what I’ll never forget, Pyotr Pavlovich,’ Getmanov went on, his voice lowered to a whisper, ‘is the way you hung fire for eight minutes at the beginning. The army commander was waiting. Yeremenko was waiting. I’ve heard that Stalin himself phoned to ask why the tanks hadn’t gone in yet. You made Stalin wait. And then you breached the enemy front without losing one tank, without losing one man. That’s something I’ll never forget.’
That night, when Novikov was in his tank on the way to Kalach, Getmanov called to see Nyeudobnov.
‘Comrade General, I’ve written a letter about the way the corps commander delayed for eight minutes at the start of a crucial operation, the operation to decide the outcome of the Great Patriotic War. I’d like you to take a look at this document.’
14
Stalin’s secretary, Poskrebyshev, was present when Vasilevsky reported by radio that the encirclement of the German armies had been completed. For a few moments Stalin just sat there, his eyes half-closed as though he were going to sleep. Poskrebyshev held his breath and tried not to move.
This was his hour of triumph. He had not only defeated his current enemy; he had defeated the past. In the village
the grass would grow thicker over the tombs of 1930. The snow and ice of the Arctic Circle would remain dumb and silent.
He knew better than anyone that no one condemns a victor.
He wished he had his children beside him. He wished he could see his little granddaughter, the daughter of the wretched Yakov. He would have just stroked her quietly on the head, not so much as glancing at the world that stretched out beyond the threshold of the hut. His beloved daughter; his quiet, sickly granddaughter; memories of childhood; the cool of a garden; the distant sound of a river. What did anything else matter? His strength existed independently of the Soviet State, independently of his great divisions.
Very slowly and gently, his eyes still closed, he repeated the words of a song:
‘You’re caught in the net, my pretty little bird,
I won’t let you go for anything in the world.’
Poskrebyshev looked at Stalin, at his grey, thinning hair, his pock-marked face, his closed eyes; suddenly he felt the ends of his fingers grow cold.
15
The success of the Stalingrad offensive filled in a number of gaps in the Soviet line of defence: between the Stalingrad Front and the Don Front; between Chuykov’s army and the divisions disposed to the north of it; between the companies and platoons ensconced in the buildings of Stalingrad and the forces in the rear from which they had been cut off. At the same time this success altered people’s consciousness: a feeling of being cut off, of being wholly or partially surrounded, was replaced by a feeling of wholeness, of unity. It is precisely this sense of fusion between the individual and the mass which engenders the morale that leads to victory.
The exact opposite, of course, took place in the hearts and minds of the encircled German soldiers. A huge piece of flesh, composed of hundreds of thousands of sensitive, intelligent cells, had been torn from the main body of the German armed forces.
Life and Fate Page 78
