The Storm of War - Andrew Roberts [196]
Hitler was disgusted and sarcastic at his Führer-conference at the Wolfschanze at 12.17 the next day, 1 February, equating the Sixth Army with a suicidal rape victim, to the Army’s disadvantage. ‘True to form,’ he told Zeitzler,
they surrendered themselves. Because otherwise, you gather yourselves together, build an all-round defence, and shoot yourself with the last cartridge. If you can imagine that a woman, after being insulted a few times, has so much pride that she goes out, locks herself in, and shoots herself dead immediately – then I have no respect for a soldier who shrinks back from it and prefers going into captivity.72
At least Hitler was to practise what he preached in that respect. Meanwhile, on 15 January, the Red Army reintroduced gradations of rank signified by epaulettes and other such badges of seniority, for reasons of discipline, morale and ease of recognition during battle. Some thought this step reminiscent of tsarism, although it was not a view that was expressed too vocally.
Two days after Paulus’ capture, the northern pocket surrendered too. Paulus, Schmidt, twenty-two other generals and a further 91,000 soldiers shuffled off into Soviet captivity, the only survivors of the 275,000 or so (estimates vary) Germans, Romanians, Italians and Russian anti-Soviet volunteers who had been cut off within the Kessel on 23 November 1942.73 An even greater percentage of German prisoners died in two years of Russian captivity before the end of the war than Russians died in four years of German captivity. Of the more than 90,000 Wehrmacht soldiers who surrendered at Stalingrad, only 9,626 ever returned to Germany, and some of them not until 1955.
The Soviets meanwhile lost 479,000 killed or captured in the Stalingrad campaign between 17 July 1942 and 2 February 1943, and a further 651,000 sick or wounded, a total of 1.13 million.74 ‘Stalingrad had become a symbol of resistance unparalleled in human history,’ wrote Chuikov. Such hyperbole is often written by old soldiers about their past battles, but in his case it was true. Chuikov’s memoirs were written with some bitterness during the Cold War, in 1959; the general was angry with Western historians downplaying the importance of his battle. Specifically attacking J. F. C. Fuller, Winston Churchill, Omar Bradley, Heinz Guderian, Kurt von Tippelkirsch ‘and other apologists of imperialism’, he went to great pains to point out the differences between El Alamein and Stalingrad. ‘At El Alamein the British were faced by four German divisions and eight Italian divisions,’ he argued,
and what is more, the main German and Italian forces managed to avoid being defeated in battle; on the Volga and the Don, however, in the period of the counter-attack by the Soviet armies from 19 November 1942 to 2 February 1943, thirty-two divisions and three brigades belonging to Nazi Germany and her satellites were destroyed. Sixteen more of the enemy’s divisions suffered serious defeat… In the battle of Stalingrad, Humanity saw the dawn of victory over Fascism.75
Chuikov was only slightly exaggerating the figures, and it is worth pointing out that little humanity was shown by the defenders of Humanity, even towards their own citizens. It is not known how many Russians – deserters or prisoners, known as Hiwis, short for Hilfswillige (volunteer helper) – fought for the Germans. No fewer than 150,000 served with the SS alone during the war, which was probably merely ‘the tip of the iceberg’.76 It was an embarrassing subject for the post-war Soviet authorities, so details about their service are sketchy, but it is estimated that over 20,000 Hiwis surrendered or were captured at Stalingrad. It is still not known what the NKVD did to them, although there are accounts of their being worked to death in camps, and of others ‘being beaten to death, rather than being shot, to save ammunition’.77 With the NKVD, it is best to err on the most brutal side of estimates.
A total of twenty German divisions – thirteen infantry, three Panzer (the 14th, 16th and 24th), three motorized