Stalingrad - Antony Beevor [178]
Many of the thousands of Hiwis still attached to German divisions were starving too. Girgensohn, after carrying out an autopsy on one corpse, told the German officer in charge that this particular Hiwi had indeed died of hunger. This diagnosis ‘left him completely astonished’. He claimed that his Hiwis received the same rations as German soldiers.
Many were treated quite well by their German officers, and there are numerous accounts demonstrating mutual trust during the last battle. But by then Russians in German uniform knew that they were doomed. There were no places for them on the aircraft flying out, and the encircling Soviet armies were accompanied by NKVD troops waiting to deal with them.
21
‘Surrender Out of the Question’
The front out in the steppe had been comparatively quiet during the first week in January. Most of the time, there had been little more than the dull crack of a sniper’s rifle, the odd burst of machine-gun fire, and the distant whistle at night of a signal flare going up: altogether what a lieutenant called ‘the usual melody of the front’. After the broadcast and leaflet drops on 9 January, German soldiers knew that the final offensive was imminent. Sentries, shivering uncontrollably, had an even stronger reason to stay awake.
One soldier remarked to a chaplain on his rounds just before the offensive: ‘Just a little bit more bread, Herr Pfarrer, then come what may.’ But the bread ration had just been reduced to seventy-five grams. They all knew that they would have to face the Soviet onslaught weak from hunger and disease and with little ammunition, even if they did not entirely understand the reason.
There was both a fatalism – ‘one spoke about death just like about a breakfast’ – yet also a will to believe. Ordinary soldiers believed the stories of the SS Panzer Corps and reinforcements landing by air. In the 297th Infantry Division, soldiers continued to be convinced, ‘that the relief force has already reached Kalach… the Grossdeutschland and the Leibstandarte divisions’. A star shell seen to the west was instantly interpreted as a signal from them. Even junior officers were misinformed by their superiors, as a lieutenant told his NKVD interrogator. Right into the first week of January, his regimental commander in the 371st Infantry Division was still telling them: ‘Help is close.’ The shock was great when they heard ‘through informal sources’ (presumably Luftwaffe personnel) about the failure of the attempt to rescue them and Army Group Don’s retreat to the west.
The NKVD, on the other hand, was soon shaken to discover the number of Russians now fighting for the Germans in the front line at Stalingrad, not just labouring as unarmed Hiwis. German accounts certainly seem to indicate that a considerable proportion of the Hiwis attached to Sixth Army divisions in the Kessel were now fighting in the front line. Many officers testified to their skill and loyalty. ‘Especially brave were the Tartars,’ reported an officer in the factory district of Stalingrad. ‘As anti-tank gunners using a captured Russian weapon, they were proud of every Soviet tank they hit. These fellows were fantastic’ Lieutenant-Colonel Mäder’s battle group, based on two grenadier regiments from the 297th Infantry Division at the southernmost point of the Kessel, contained no fewer than 780 ‘combat-willing Russians’, nearly half his force. They were entrusted with key roles. The machine-gun company had twelve Ukrainians ‘who conducted themselves really well’. Their worst problem, apart from lack of food, was the shortage of ammunition. The battle group’s nine field guns were rationed to an average of one and a half shells per gun per day.
Operation Koltso, or ‘Ring’, began early on Sunday, 10 January. Rokossovsky and Voronov were at the headquarters of 65th Army when the order ‘Fire!’ was given over the radio at five past six, German time. Guns roared, bouncing on their chassis from the recoil. Katyusha rockets screamed