Stalingrad

became casualties from drinking a captured supply of German antifreeze. Three died, while the remaining seventeen were ‘in a serious condition in a field hospital’. On the northern flank, a captured Russian officer told Prince Dohna that when his battalion, half-starved from ration shortages, captured a Romanian supply dump, 150 men died ‘owing to excessive consumption’.
    Meanwhile in Stalingrad itself, the 62nd Army found itself in a strange position. Although forming part of the new encirclement of the Sixth Army, it remained cut off from the east bank of the Volga, short of supplies and its wounded unevacuated. Every time a boat hazarded a crossing through the dangerous ice floes, German artillery opened fire. Yet the atmosphere had changed now that the attackers had become the besieged. The men of the 62nd Army were still not quite able to believe that the turning point had come. Russian soldiers,with no prospect of any more tobacco supplies until the Volga froze solid, sang to divert their thoughts from their craving for nicotine. The Germans listened from their bunkers. They did not shout insults any more.

16
Hitler’s Obsession
    The task of informing the Führer about the great Soviet breakthrough on 19 November fell to the Army Chief of Staff, General Zeitzler, who had remained behind in East Prussia. Hitler was at the Berghof above Berchtesgaden, which was where he had received news of Stalin’s agreement to the Nazi-Soviet pact in August 1939. On that occasion, he had banged the dinner table in triumph, to the surprise of the ladies of his court. ‘I’ve got them!’ he had shouted, leaping to his feet. Tve got them!’ This time, his reaction appears to have been one of nervous anger.
    The Wehrmacht Supreme Command war diary referred, with revealing disingenuousness, to ‘alarming news of the Russian offensive which has been long expected by the Fuhrer’. Hitler’s reaction to the unsuccessful counter-attack of the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps that day was even more indicative. After his clumsy interference had failed to stop the Romanian collapse, he wanted a scapegoat, and ordered General Heim’s arrest.
    Hitler recognized, although he did not admit it, that the whole of the German position in southern Russia was now at risk. On the second day of the offensive, he ordered Field Marshal von Manstein to return to the south from Vitebsk to form a new Army Group Don. Manstein was the most admired strategist in the German Army and had worked successfully with Romanian forces in the Crimea.
    In the physical absence of the Führer, the Supreme Command ofthe Wehrmacht was paralysed. During 21 November, the day that Paulus and Schmidt abandoned their headquarters at Golubinsky when threatened by a column of Soviet tanks, Hitler’s chief adjutant, General Schmundt, was preoccupied with ‘alterations to the uniforms of officers and Wehrmacht officials’.
    The Führer’s order to the Sixth Army to stand firm despite the threat of ‘temporary encirclement’ eventually caught up with Paulus when he reached Nizhne-Chirskaya. Paulus was also told to take under command all of Hoth’s troops south of Stalingrad and the remains of the Romanian VI Army Corps. The key part was: ‘Keep open rail lines as long as possible. Orders to follow on subject of resupply by air.’ Paulus, whose instinct was to consider withdrawal from the Volga to join up with the rest of Army Group B, was extremely reluctant to react to this abrupt decree until he felt that he had a better understanding of the overall situation.
    He had flown to Nizhne-Chirskaya because the headquarters prepared there for the winter possessed secure communications with Army Group B and the
Wolfsschanze
near Rastenburg. But Hitler, on hearing of his arrival, suspected that he wanted to escape the Russians. He ordered him to fly back at once to join the rest of his staff at Gumrak within the encirclement. When General Hoth arrived early next morning, 22 November, he found Paulus angered and upset by Hitler’s insinuation that he had abandoned his men. Paulus’s chief of staff, General Schmidt, was on the telephone to General Martin Fiebig, the commander of VIII Air Corps. Schmidt re-emphasized that the Sixth Army urgently needed fuel and ammunition to break out, and Fiebig repeated what he had said the previous afternoon: ‘It’s impossible to resupply a whole army by air. The Luftwaffe hasn’t got enough transport aircraft.’
    The three