The Storm of War - Andrew Roberts [192]
Paulus needed to move fast to escape the giant trap that had been sprung around him, and to meet Manstein coming north-eastwards to his relief, but Hitler refused him permission to move, and Paulus himself did not want to attempt it. ‘I gave the order finally for the Sixth Army to break out,’ Manstein told his interviewer at Nuremberg in June 1946, ‘but then Paulus said it was too late and not possible. Hitler did not want the Sixth Army to break out at any time, but to fight to the last man. I believe that Hitler said that if the Sixth Army tried to break out, it would be their death.’54 A decade after the war, and thus with the benefit of both hindsight and little likelihood of being gainsaid, Zeitzler claimed that, back in November 1942, ‘I had told Hitler that if a quarter of a million soldiers were to be lost at Stalingrad, then the backbone of the entire Eastern front would be broken.’55 The Führer hardly needed to be told of the importance of Stalingrad, himself exhorting the troops of the Sixth Army and the Fourth Armoured Army on 26 November:
The battle around Stalingrad is reaching its climax… My thoughts and those of the German people are with you in these grave hours! Whatever the circumstances, you must hold on to the Stalingrad position which has been won with so much blood under the leadership of resolute generals! Your resolve must be so unshakeable that, as at Kharkov in the spring, this Russian breakthrough too will be annihilated by the measures that have been put in hand. Everything that lies in my power is being done to help you in your heroic struggle.56
Earlier that same month Hitler had issued a similar ‘Stand or die’ order to Rommel at El Alamein; henceforth there were to be many such messages, in which the Führer forsook strategic manoeuvre, replacing it with a blind, unyielding test of willpower, one in which flesh and blood were set against steel and fire.
Stalingrad was an important transport hub, industrial city and oil refinery, but not so important as to justify the emphasis the Nazis put on its capture, in fighting that still today results in mines and shells and especially bones being uncovered every springtime. Hitler was not merely being hubristic when he ordered Paulus to stay in Stalingrad, however. He also needed to withdraw Army Group A from the Caucasus, which had to be covered by Stalingrad.
‘Hitler’s veto on any breakout appears incredibly rash when one considers the forces involved,’ wrote Mellenthin. ‘For this was no ordinary army invested at Stalingrad; the Sixth Army represented the spearhead of the Wehrmacht, in what was intended to be the decisive campaign of the war.’57 Stalingrad certainly was that, but not for the reason Hitler intended, for in the event Manstein’s rescue bid was stopped short of its destination. With a fraction of the necessary supplies being dropped by the IV Luftflotte Junkers of Luftwaffe Field Marshal Baron von Richthofen – a cousin of the Great War ace the Red Baron – whose aircraft were put out of action by Russian fighters, anti-aircraft guns and the weather conditions, Paulus’ army started to die on its frostbitten feet. Casualties, disease, exhaustion, starvation and above all the debilitating cold later rendered a breakout impossible anyway. (Richthofen developed a brain tumour in 1944, and died the next year.)
Chuikov now faced a renewed danger on the ground, since the Volga had started to freeze over on 12 November. Stalingrad lies on the edge of the windy, treeless steppes and was thus particularly vulnerable to temperatures that could reach as low as –45 Celsius. It was not unknown for German soldiers