Stalingrad

by Vasily Grossman

  Hitler for his part thought that in another five or six years the Duce would be looking wholly decrepit. His short legs would become still shorter, his heavy jaw still heavier and his old man’s belly would protrude still further. There was a terrible mismatch between his dwarf’s body and his huge chin, face and forehead. His intelligent dark eyes, however, remained cruel and penetrating.

  The Führer, still smiling, complimented the Duce, saying he looked younger than ever. The Duce, in turn, complimented the Führer; he could see at once that he was in excellent health and good spirits.

  They began to talk about the winter campaign. Mussolini, rubbing his hands, as if the mere thought of the Moscow winter had been enough to chill them, congratulated Hitler on his victory over the Russian snow and ice, over those three great Russian generals: December, January and February. His voice was solemn; he had clearly prepared his words in advance, just as he had prepared his fixed smile.

  They agreed that, despite the losses of both men and equipment during what, even by Russian standards, had proved an unprecedentedly severe winter, the German divisions had suffered no repeat of Napoleon’s experience at Berezina; the invader of 1941 was evidently a superior strategist to the invader of 1812.1 The two leaders went on to discuss the overall outlook.

  Now that winter was over, there was nothing that could save Russia—the only remaining enemy of the new order on the European continent. The impending offensive would bring the Soviets to their knees; it would cut off the supply of oil to factories in the Urals and would leave Soviet agriculture, the Soviet Air Force and the Red Army without fuel. It would bring about the fall of Moscow. Soon after the defeat of Russia, the British would capitulate too, overwhelmed by air raids and submarine warfare. The United States would do little to help them. General Motors, US Steel and Standard Oil had no wish to increase production. On the contrary, it was in their interests to limit production and so be in a position to increase prices. It was the same with every other company producing steel, magnesium, artificial rubber, aircraft and engines for military vehicles. And Churchill, in any case, hated his Russian ally more than his German enemy; in his senile mind he no longer understood who he was fighting. Neither Hitler nor Mussolini had anything to say about Roosevelt, that “absurd paralytic.” They did, however, have something to say about the situation in France—and their views were identical. Although Hitler had recently reorganized the Vichy cabinet, anti-German sentiment was intensifying and there was the possibility of French treachery. But this was no cause for alarm: once Germany had its hands free in the east, it would be able to establish peace and order in the rest of Europe.

  Hitler said with a little smile that he would, in any case, soon recall Heydrich from Czechoslovakia and send him to France to restore order there.2 He then turned to African matters. Without a hint of reproach, he listed the various units comprising Rommel’s now reinforced Afrika Korps, sent to support the Italians.3 Mussolini understood that Hitler was clearing the ground, that he was about to move on to the main topic of their meeting—the impending offensive in Russia—but that he had felt obliged first to emphasize his readiness to support the Italians in Africa.

  And Hitler did indeed soon begin to talk about Russia and the coming offensive. What he did not say—and evidently preferred not to admit even to himself—was that the hard battles and cruel losses of the previous winter had made it impossible for the German army to conduct a simultaneous offensive along all three axes: in the south, in the north and in the centre. Hitler believed his plans for a southern campaign to be the product of his own free will; he still thought that he and he alone was determining the course of events.

  He told Mussolini that the Soviets had suffered huge losses. They no longer received supplies of Ukrainian wheat. Leningrad was under continuous artillery bombardment. The Baltic States had been wrested from Russia’s grasp once and for all. German armies had already advanced far beyond the Dnieper. The coal mines, the chemical and metal-processing plants of the Donbass were in the hands of the Fatherland. German fighters now flew over Moscow. The Soviet Union had lost Belorussia, most of Crimea, and many provinces in the heart of the country that had been part of Russia for a thousand years. Russia had been driven from such ancient cities as Smolensk, Pskov, Oryol, Kursk, Vyazma and Rzhev. All that remained—Hitler continued—was to deliver the final blow. But if it were truly to be a final blow, then it must be delivered with fantastic strength. The generals in the strategy department thought it would be a mistake to advance simultaneously on both Stalingrad and the Caucasus. But he himself thought otherwise: if, during the previous year, he had had the strength to wage war in Africa, to pound Britain from the air, to paralyze American shipping with his submarine fleet and at the same time to advance swiftly into the heart of Russia along the whole of a 3,000-kilometre front, why should he hesitate today? Why should he hesitate when the supine weakness of Britain and America freed him to concentrate such vast power against a single section of a single front? The new offensive had to be overwhelming. Once again, Hitler would redeploy large forces from France, Belgium and the Netherlands, leaving only the divisions required to patrol the Atlantic and North Sea coasts. The troops transferred to the east would be regrouped; the Northern, Northwestern and Western Army Groups would be playing a passive role—the force of the impact was to be concentrated in the south-east.

  Never, perhaps, had so much artillery, so many tank and infantry divisions, so many bomber and fighter aircraft been brought together. This seemingly limited offensive would acquire universal significance. It was the final, definitive stage of the advance of National Socialism. It would determine forever the fate not only of Europe but of the world. The Italian army, therefore, should play a worthy role in the offensive. And not only the Italian army, but also Italian industry, Italian agriculture and the whole Italian people.

  Mussolini was well aware that these amicable meetings were always accompanied by considerable material demands. Hitler’s last sentences meant the despatch to the Eastern front of hundreds of thousands of Italian soldiers, a sharp increase in the Wehrmacht’s requirement for Italian grains and other foods, and additional forced recruitment of Italian workers for German companies.

  After their tête-à-tête, Hitler followed Mussolini out of the room and walked beside him through the large hall. Mussolini glanced with a pang of envy at the German sentries. Their shoulders and uniforms seemed cast from steel—though their eyes took on a look of ecstatic tension as the Führer walked past. Somehow the splendid colours of the Italian army paled before the grey of these sentries’ uniforms and of Hitler’s trench coat—a dull monotone grey, similar to that of military vehicles or the hull of a battleship, that appeared to embody the power of the German army. Was this self-assured commander-in-chief really the same man as the awkward figure who, during their first meeting in Venice eight years ago, had made the crowd laugh as he stumbled during a parade of the Guardia and Carabinieri? Wearing a white raincoat, old shoes and a crumpled black hat, the Führer had looked like some provincial actor or painter—while the Duce himself had worn an officer’s cloak, a plumed helmet and the silver-embroidered uniform of a Roman general.

  Hitler’s power and success never ceased to astonish Mussolini. There was something unreal, something that didn’t make sense, about the triumph of this Bohemian psychopath. In his heart of hearts Mussolini saw Hitler’s success as a bizarre freak, an aberration on the part of world history.

  That evening Mussolini talked for a few minutes with his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano. The two men had gone out for a short walk in the charming garden—it was, after all, possible that their friend and ally might have installed secret Siemens microphones in the rooms of the schloss. Mussolini expressed his irritation: once again, he had had no choice but to comply with Hitler. It was events in the godforsaken Don or Kalmyk steppes—rather than in the Mediterranean or in North Africa—that would now determine his own success or failure in establishing the Great I
talian Empire. Ciano asked about the Führer’s health. Mussolini replied that he seemed strong, though somewhat exhausted—and, as always, had been unbelievably verbose.

  Ciano said that Ribbentrop had been courteous and solicitous, to the point of seeming almost unsure of himself. Mussolini replied that the war’s final outcome would soon be decided; everything would be clear by the end of the summer.

  “I fear,” said Ciano, “that any failure of the Führer’s will be our failure too. But whether or not we will share in any final and definitive success of the Führer’s is another matter. I have my doubts, and have done for some time.”

  Mussolini said he considered such scepticism unjustified. He then retired to his room.

  On 30 April, after breakfast, Hitler and Mussolini met for a second time, in the presence of generals, field marshals and both countries’ ministers of foreign affairs. Hitler was in an excited state. Without so much as a glance at the papers in front of him, he cited details about the deployment of German divisions and statistics showing the power of German industry. He spoke for an hour and forty minutes without a pause, occasionally licking his lips with his large tongue, as if his own words tasted sweet to him. He touched on a huge variety of questions: Krieg, Frieden, Weltgeschichte, Religion, Politik, Philosophie, deutsche Seele . . .4 He spoke quickly and forcefully, but calmly, seldom raising his voice. He smiled only once, his face twitching as he said, “Soon the laughter of Jews will fall silent forever.” He raised his fist for a moment but quickly unclenched it and let his hand drop to the table. Mussolini frowned; the Führer’s rages scared him.

  Hitler moved several times to questions about life after the war. Expecting a successful summer offensive to put a quick end to the war on the European mainland, he was devoting much thought to questions about the peace that would follow: to questions about social laws and the position of religion—and about the National Socialist science and art that would at last be free to develop in a new, purified Europe, now purged of Communists, Democrats and Jews.

  And it was indeed time to consider such matters. In September or October, when the final collapse of Soviet Russia marked the beginning of a new era of peace, when the last blaze was extinguished and the dust of the last battle in Russian history had settled, there would be countless questions demanding urgent resolution: about the peacetime organization of German life, about the administrative divisions and political status of the defeated countries, about restrictions to be placed on the legal rights and entitlement to education of inferior nations, about breeding and reproduction control, about the transfer of human masses from the former Soviet Union to carry out restoration and reconstruction work in the Fatherland and the organization of long-term camps for these masses, about the dismantling and liquidation of industrial units in Moscow, Leningrad and the Urals, and even such minor but inescapable tasks as the renaming of Russian and French cities.

  There was one peculiarity about the Führer’s manner of speech: he seemed hardly to care whether or not people were listening to him. He spoke with relish, as if taking pleasure in moving his large lips, his gaze directed at some point between the ceiling and the top of the white satin drapes hanging over the dark oak doors. Now and then he would come out with a resonant sentence: “The Aryan is the Prometheus of mankind,” “Violence is the mother of order and the source of all true greatness—I have restored to violence its true meaning,” “We have now established the eternal dominion of the Aryan Prometheus over all human and other earthly beings.”

  He would say these things with a radiant look, gasping excitedly, almost convulsively.

  Mussolini frowned. He made a quick movement of his head, looking to one side, as if trying to see his own ear. He twice looked anxiously at his wristwatch—he too liked to have his say. During these meetings it was always the younger man, the disciple, who played the leading role; the Duce’s only consolation lay in his awareness of the superiority of his own intelligence, but this made it all the more painful to have to remain silent for long periods. He was constantly aware that Ribbentrop was watching him; the look in the German diplomat’s eyes was friendly and respectful, but also penetrating. Sitting next to Ribbentrop was Ciano. He was leaning back in his armchair and watching the Führer’s lips: might he say something about the North African colonies and the future Franco-Italian frontier? On this occasion, however, the Führer did not descend to such details. Alfieri, who had heard Hitler speak more often than most Italians, was looking up at the same spot as the Führer—just above the top of the white drapes, with an expression of quiet submissiveness. General Jodl, sitting on a distant couch, was dozing, while somehow maintaining a look of delicate attentiveness. Marshal Keitel—who was sitting directly opposite Hitler and so could not afford to fall asleep—kept throwing back his massive head, adjusting his monocle and, without looking at anyone, scowling morosely. Marshal Cavallero seemed to be drinking in every word Hitler said. He was craning his neck, his head cocked a little to one side, and listening with an expression of obsequious joy. From time to time he gave a quick nod.

  To all those who had already attended one of these occasions, this meeting in Salzburg seemed in no way exceptional.

  As during previous meetings, the main topic of discussion was European politics and the progress of the war. And the Führer and the Duce behaved the same as always: those close to them were well aware of each man’s attitude—by now only too settled and fixed—towards the other. They knew that Mussolini felt he was now the subordinate partner and that he resented this. It upset him that new initiatives and decisions always came from Berlin, rather than from Rome. It upset him never to be asked in advance for his thoughts about the joint declarations he was so solemnly and respectfully asked to sign. It upset him to be woken just before dawn, when he was soundly asleep, by telephone calls from the Führer, whose attitude towards the patriarch of fascism seemed surprisingly casual.

  Galeazzo Ciano also understood that Mussolini looked down on Hitler. It comforted him to consider the Führer a fool. The Führer’s power derived merely from numbers, from statistical superiority: German industry and the German army were bigger than Italian industry and the Italian army. Mussolini’s strength, on the other hand, came from Mussolini himself. The Duce even enjoyed making fun of Italian weakness and pusillanimity; these qualities set off all the more clearly the personal power of a leader who was fighting to make a hammer out of a people who for sixteen centuries had played the role of an anvil.

  The members of the two leaders’ entourages, alert to their masters’ every look and gesture, noted that nothing had changed between the Führer and the Duce; both superficially and at a deeper level, their relations were the same as during previous meetings. The external surroundings appeared equally similar: Schloss Klessheim, like other buildings where the leaders had met, was endowed with a severe grandeur appropriate to the protagonists’ extraordinary power and military might. Hitler’s speeches, admittedly, differed in one small respect: here in Salzburg he was talking for the first time about a final, decisive military operation. Apart from Soviet armies that had already retreated a huge distance, Hitler now had no armed adversary on the European mainland. This difference might have been noted by some future National Socialist historian. This historian might also have noted that Hitler seemed more self-confident than ever.

  Nevertheless, there was a difference of far greater significance. The Führer had always been eager for war; he had always been intoxicated by war. In Salzburg, however, he spoke insistently and with remarkable confidence about peace, so betraying an unconscious fear of the war he had himself unleashed. For six years Hitler, through a combination of satanic violence and astute bluffing, had won victory after victory. He had been certain that the only real force, the only true strength in the world was that of his own army and his own empire; everything opposed to him was imaginary, arbitrary and insubstantial. Only his own fist possessed weight and reality. His powerful fist had smashed through the mili
tary, political and constitutional settlements agreed at Versailles; these proved no stronger than gossamer. Hitler sincerely believed that by giving free rein to primitive brutality he had opened up new avenues of history. And he had demonstrated all too clearly the impotence of the Treaty of Versailles, first violating individual clauses, next trampling the whole treaty into the ground, and then rewriting it in front of the American president and the prime ministers of Britain and France.

  He reintroduced compulsory military service and began to recreate the navy, army and air force forbidden by Versailles. He remilitarized the Rhineland, bringing in 30,000 soldiers. These 30,000 men turned out to be enough to alter the apparently decisive outcome of the First World War; there had been no need for an army of millions or masses of heavy weapons. Hitler then struck blow after blow. One after another, he destroyed the new states of post-Versailles Europe: first Austria, then Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia.

  But the greater Hitler’s success, the blinder he became. He was unable to conceive that not everything in the world was propaganda or political posturing, that there might be other real forces in the world and that there might exist governments capable of doing more than transmitting their own impotence to their workers, soldiers and sailors. Hitler was unable to conceive that his fist could not smash through everything.

  German armies had invaded Soviet Russia on 22 June 1941. Hitler’s initial success blinded him to the true nature of the granite, of the spiritual and material forces, that he had chosen to attack. These were not imaginary forces; they were the forces of a great nation that had already laid the foundations of a future world. That first summer offensive, followed by the winter’s devastating losses, bled the German army and placed overwhelming demands on the military-industrial complex. Hitler was therefore unable, in 1942, to do as he had done the previous year, to advance simultaneously in the south, in the north and in the centre. War had become slow and heavy; it was no longer a pleasure. But it was impossible for Hitler not to advance; far from being a strength, this was what doomed him. He began to tire of the war, to feel afraid of it, yet it went on growing and growing. He himself, ten months earlier, had ignited this war, but he no longer had any power over it; it was impossible for him to extinguish it. The war was spreading like a forest fire; its scope, its rage, its strength and duration were constantly growing. No matter what the price, Hitler had to bring it to an end, but it is easier to achieve initial success in a war than to bring it to a successful conclusion.