Stalingrad - Antony Beevor [164]
Rokossovsky, the commander-in-chief responsible for the coup de grâce on the Sixth Army, was allowed 47 divisions, 5,610 field guns and heavy mortars and 169 tanks. This force of 218,000 men was supported by 300 aircraft. But Stalin’s impatience again built up, just as he was planning a strike against the Hungarian Second Army. To his fury, he was told that transport difficulties had slowed the delivery of reinforcements, supplies and ammunition. Voronov demanded yet another delay of four days. Stalin’s sarcasm was bitter. ‘You’ll be sitting around there until the Germans take you and Rokossovsky prisoners!’ With great reluctance, he agreed to the new date of 10 January.
German officers outside the Kessel had been wondering what would happen next. General Fiebig, the commander of VIII Air Corps, wondered after a long conversation with Richthofen: ‘Why don’t the Russians crush the Kessel like a ripe fruit?’ Red Army officers on the Don Front were also surprised about the delay, and wondered how long it would be before they received their orders to attack. Voronov, however, had received another call from Moscow now telling him that an ultimatum to the Sixth Army must be prepared.
Voronov, in that first week of January 1943, wrote a draft addressed personally to Paulus. Constant calls from Moscow, with Stalin’s amendments, were necessary. When finally approved, it was translated at Don Front headquarters by ‘German anti-fascists from the group headed by Walter Ulbricht’. Meanwhile, NKVD representatives and Colonel Vinogradov of Red Army intelligence, displaying their usual rivalry, had begun to search for suitable officers to act as truce envoys. In the end, a compromise was reached. Late in the afternoon of 7 January, Major Aleksandr Mikhailovich Smyslov of army intelligence and Captain Nikolay Dmitrevich Dyatlenko of the NKVD, were selected to go together. Vinogradov, when interviewing Dyatlenko, suddenly asked: ‘Are you a khokhol?’ Khokhol, or ‘tufty’, was the insulting term for a Ukrainian, because Russians were often rude about their traditional style of haircut.
‘No, Comrade Colonel,’ replied Dyatlenko stiffly. ‘I’m a Ukrainian.’
‘So you’re just like a Russian,’ Vinogradov laughed. ‘Well done. You are a suitable representative of the Red Army to meet the fascists.’
Smyslov and Dyatlenko were then briefed by General Malinin, the chief-of-staff, and by Voronov himself. One might have thought that Stalin was looking over their shoulder from the way both generals kept asking the envoys whether they fully understood the instructions from Moscow. In fact nobody really had a clear idea of the rules and ritual of a truce envoy. Dyatlenko admitted that his only knowledge came from the play Field Marshal Kutuzov by Solovyov.
‘So lads,’ said Voronov, ‘will you fulfil your mission?’
‘We will fulfil it, Comrade Colonel-General!’ they chanted as one.
Malinin then ordered the front quartermaster-in-chief to kit out the two officers in the smartest uniforms available. The Germans had to be impressed. The quartermaster promised to have them ‘dressed like bridegrooms’, and winked ‘like a magician’ at the two envoys. With Voronov’s backing, he had every general’s aide at front headquarters on parade in his department. He ordered them all to strip, so that Dyatlenko and Smyslov could try on their uniforms and boots. The two envoys soon found themselves in a Willys staff car, with Colonel Vinogradov. Their destination, they were told, was Kotluban station on 24th Army’s sector.
Russian troops in the area had received the order to cease firing from dusk. Then, all through the night, Red Army loudspeakers broadcast a message prepared by Ulbricht’s anti-fascists, telling the Germans to expect truce envoys. By the next dawn, 8 January, firing had ceased. Smyslov and Dyatlenko were allotted a tall corporal, equipped with a white flag and a three-note trumpet. ‘It was unusually quiet on the snow-covered plain’ when they advanced to the very front trenches. The corporal blew the trumpet call: ‘Attention! Attention! Everybody