Stalingrad

added to ‘
Wassersuppe
’ came from local supplies. The carcasses were kept fresh by the cold, but the temperature was so low that meat could not be sliced from them with knives. Only a pioneer saw was strong enough.
    The combination of cold and starvation meant that soldiers, when not on sentry, just lay in their dugouts, conserving energy. Thebunker was a refuge which they could hardly face leaving. Often, their minds went blank because the chilling of their blood slowed down both physical and mental activity. Books had been passed round until they disintegrated or were lost in the mud or snow, but now few had the energy left to read. In a similar way, Luftwaffe officers running Pitomnik airfield had given up chess in favour of skat because any effort of concentration was beyond them. In many cases, however, the lack of food led not to apathy but to crazed illusions, like those of ancient mystics who heard voices through malnutrition.
    It is impossible to assess the numbers of suicides or deaths resulting from battle stress. Examples in other armies, as already mentioned, rise dramatically when soldiers are cut off, and no army was more beleaguered than the Sixth Army at Stalingrad. Men raved wildly in their bunks, some lay there howling. Many, during a manic burst of activity, had to be overpowered or knocked senseless by their comrades. Some soldiers feared breakdown and madness in others as if it were contagious. But the greatest alarm was provoked when a sick comrade had dilated nostrils and black lips and the whites of his eyes turned pink. The fear of typhus seemed curiously atavistic, almost as if it were a medieval plague.
    The sense of approaching death could also stimulate an intense awareness of all that they were about to lose. Tough men dreamed feverishly of images of home, and wept silently at the idea of never seeing wife or children again. More reflective characters re-examined memories, or studied the world about them, especially their comrades, with a new interest. Some even had enough emotion left to feel sorry for the starving horses gnawing desperately at a piece of wood.
    For the first week or ten days in January, before the Soviet offensive broke, men tried not to let their true degree of wretchedness show in letters home. ‘I received a quarter litre of vodka and thirteen cigarettes for the New Year,’ wrote a soldier called Willy to his parents in a letter which never reached them, ‘but all the food I’ve got now is a piece of bread. I’ve never missed you more than today when we were singing the “
Wolgalied”.
I’m sitting in a cage here – it’s not made of gold but of the Russian encirclement.’ Many soldiers camouflaged the truth even further. ‘We can only count upon the fact that springwill start soon,’ a soldier called Seppel wrote home. ‘The weather is still bad, but the main thing is to be healthy and have a good stove. The Christmas holidays passed well.’ Others, however, did not try to conceal their feelings: ‘The only thing left to me is to think about the three of you,’ a soldier wrote to his wife and children.
    Some desperate to escape considered self-inflicted wounds. Those who went through with it did not just risk execution. Even if no suspicions were aroused, they risked death from their own action. A light flesh wound was not enough to earn a flight out of the
Kessel.
A shot through the right hand was too obvious, and with so few soldiers left in the front line, the wound had to be disabling if they were to be released from combat duties. But once the final Soviet advance began, even ‘a light wound which hindered movement, practically signified death’.
    From early January, an increasing number of German soldiers began to surrender without resistance or even to desert to the enemy. Deserters tended to be infantrymen at the front, partly because they had more opportunity. There were also cases of officers and soldiers who refused evacuation, out of bravery and an almost obsessive sense of duty. Lieutenant Löbbecke, the commander of a company of tanks in 16th Panzer Division, had lost an arm in the fighting, but soldiered on without having the wound properly treated. His divisional commander could not persuade him to go for treatment. Eventually, General Strecker got hold of him.
    ‘I request permission to stay with my men,’ Löbbecke said immediately. ‘I cannot leave them now when the fighting is so desperate.’ Strecker, presumably