The Storm of War - Andrew Roberts [187]
The point upon which we had our final disagreement was the decision of an offensive on the Caucasus and Stalingrad – a mistake, and Hitler didn’t want to see it. I told him the Russians would put in another million men in 1942 and get another in 1943. Hitler told me I was an idiot – that the Russians were practically dead already. When I told Hitler about Russian armament potentials, especially for tank materials, Hitler flew into a rage and threatened me with his fists. Hitler issued several orders to the Eastern Front, contrary to military advice. This caused the setback. Then he blamed the army group for the defeat and claimed that they were purposely at fault. At that point I became furious, struck my fists on the table, made scenes, et cetera… those arguments were provoked by me because in twenty years of general staff work I have served with many superior officers and have not had arguments and I have always got along.32
A fundamental cause of the defeat on the Eastern Front was the continual tension between the OKH and the OKW. Hitler resented the supposed snobbery, suspected the loyalty and despised the caution of his generals. Instead of a permanent consultative body of experts preparing situation reports and future possible operations, such as the Stavka in Moscow, the Chiefs of Staff in London and the Joint Chiefs in Washington, Nazi Germany just had the noontime Lagevortrag (situation conference), at which Jodl submitted Warlimont’s daily assessments. Hitler worked through Jodl and Keitel, whom he trusted but whom the OKH generals came to despise for their cowardice before the Führer. Orders were not debated with the Commander-in-Chief, Brauchitsch, who was simply expected to carry them out. It was a system that almost deliberately failed to use the best brains in the Wehrmacht hierarchy.
On 30 September, Hitler made a radio broadcast promising the German Volk that Stalingrad would fall. Yet from nightfall that evening the 39th Guards Infantry Division under Major-General Stiepan Guniev was ferried across the Volga to defend the Red October Factory, an operation which Guniev continued ‘even when the grenades of German tommy-gunners were bursting at the entrance’ to his command post. The next day, 1 October, the situation in Chuikov’s headquarters was such that with the ‘Fumes, smoke – we could not breathe. Shells and bombs bursting all around us. So much noise that however loud you shouted no one could hear you… Many times the radio operator would be killed with the microphone in his hands.’ When the Front HQ asked their whereabouts, Chuikov’s command post answered: ‘We’re where the most flames and smoke are.’33 Yet all this came before Paulus’ most powerful offensive.
The three huge factories and their adjacent Settlements were turned into a hecatomb during the fighting of early October 1942. Chuikov estimated that the 308th Infantry Division under Colonel L. N. Gurtiev fought off ‘not less than a hundred ferocious attacks’ in the course of the battle.34 At the Tractor Factory, north of the Barrikady complex, one regiment, commanded by a Colonel Markelov, had just eleven men left standing after only twenty-four hours of fighting.35 Yet right up until Paulus’ great offensive of 14 October, artillerymen and engineers at the Tractor Factory were still repairing tanks and guns with the help of workers from the Barrikady. Within the factory itself individual areas such as the sorting shop, calibration shop, warehouse and foundry became mini-battlefields in themselves, changing hands several times during the struggle. On 5 October alone, 2,000 enemy sorties were counted by the Russians, with the communal bath-house of the Red October Settlement changing hands five times. Chuikov could not find time to wash for an entire month. He took the terrible losses philosophically, saying that the experience gained in fighting the Germans ‘compensated for our physical losses. Of course, the loss of men is a bitter thing – but war is