Hitler

divisions. But he did not think the Axis partners were ready to desert. Italy would ‘like to dance out of line’; though as long as Mussolini was there, this could be ruled out. The Duce was clever enough to know that it would mean the end of Fascism, and his own end. Romania was essential to Germany for its oil, Hitler said. He had made it plain to the Romanians what would come their way should they attempt anything stupid.
    Hitler still hoped – at least that is what he told Goebbels – that parts of the 6th Army could hold out until they could be relieved. In fact, he knew better than anyone that there was not the slightest chance of it. The 6th Army was on its last legs. On 22 January, the very day that Goebbels had had his talks with Hitler at FHQ, Paulus had requested permission to surrender. Hitler rejected it. He then rejected a similar plea from Manstein to allow the 6th Army’s surrender. As a point of honour, he stated, there could be no question of capitulation. In the evening, he telegraphed the 6th Army to say that it had made an historic contribution in the greatest struggle in German history. The army was to stand fast ‘to the last soldier and the last bullet’.
    Since 23 January the 6th Army had been beginning to break up. It was split in two as Soviet troops cutting through from the south and the west of the city joined forces. By 26 January the division of the 6thArmy was complete. One section raised the white flag on the 29th. The same day, Paulus sent Hitler a telegram of congratulations on the tenth anniversary of his take-over of power on the 30th.
    The ‘celebrations’ in Germany for the anniversary of Hitler’s day of triumph in January 1933 were in a low key. All bunting was banned. Hitler did not give his usual speech. He remained in his headquarters and left it to Goebbels to read out his proclamation. A single sentence referred to Stalingrad: ‘The heroic struggle of our soldiers on the Volga should be a warning for everybody to do the utmost for the struggle for Germany’s freedom and the future of our people, and thus in a wider sense for the maintenance of our entire continent.’ In Stalingrad itself, the end was approaching. Feelers were put out by the remnants of the 6th Army to the Soviets that very evening, 30 January 1943, for a surrender. Negotiations took place next day. On that day, the announcement was made that Paulus had been promoted to Field-Marshal. He was expected to end the struggle with a hero’s death. In the evening, he surrendered. Two days later, on 2 February, the northern sector of the surrounded troops also gave in. The battle of Stalingrad was over. Around 100,000 men from twenty-one German and two Romanian divisions had fallen in battle. A further 113,000 German and Romanian soldiers were taken prisoner. Only a few thousand would survive their captivity.
    VIII
    Hitler made no mention of the human tragedy when he met his military leaders at the midday conference on 1 February. What concerned him was the prestige lost through Paulus’s surrender. He found it impossible to comprehend, and impossible to forgive. ‘Here a man can look on while 50–60,000 of his soldiers die and defend themselves bravely to the last. How can he give himself up to the Bolsheviks?’ he asked, nearly speechless with anger at what he saw as a betrayal. He could have no respect for an officer who chose captivity to shooting himself. ‘How easy it is to do something like that. The pistol – that’s simple. What sort of cowardice does it take to pull back from it?’ ‘No one else is being made field-marshal in this war,’ he avowed (though he did not keep to his word). He was certain – it proved an accurate presumption – that,in Soviet hands, Paulus and the other captured generals would within no time be promoting anti-German propaganda. Drawing on horror-stories of tortures in Russian prisons that had circulated in the
völkisch
press since the early 1920s, he said: ‘They’ll lock them up in the rat-cellar, and two days later they’ll have them so softened-up that they’ll talk straight away … They’ll now come into the Lubljanka, and there they’ll be eaten by rats. How can someone be so cowardly? I don’t understand it. So many people have to die. Then such a man goes and besmirches in the last minute the heroism of so many others. He could release himself from all misery and enter eternity, national immortality, and he prefers to go to Moscow.