‘Help yourselves for as long as our little stock of food lasts,’ Eichert told his guests. ‘What’s ours is yours.’
Breuer thanked him. But not in the customary manner, by saying: ‘Permit me, Captain, sir, to humbly express my gratitude.’ Instead he simply said: ‘Many thanks, Herr Eichert!’ No one batted an eyelid. Everything had changed.
Lieutenant Dierk, who was well looked after by the others, especially the junior doctor, began to take a little more interest in his surroundings. Yet his scant replies remained mechanical and empty and discouraged questioners. He slept for the most part. Deprived of rest for weeks, his ravaged body demanded its rights. When Corporal Görz, lacerated by shrapnel, was fighting his losing battle to stay alive in the next room, Dierk sat with him and stroked his hand. One time, he clutched at Breuer’s sleeve as the lieutenant was about to leave and looked up at him with fear in his face.
‘The Führer…,’ he whispered, ‘a whole army… and he can’t help! What a blow for him…’
When the first rumours began to circulate about the Cauldron splitting in two and the southern section collapsing, a lively debate was rekindled. The divisions south of the Zariza River had supposedly taken matters into their own hands and laid down their arms. No more orders were coming from above. The High Command was wreathed in silence. It did not countermand the order to ‘fight to the last bullet’ but nor did it insist that it be carried out. Did a command structure even exist any longer?
‘This is the end,’ declared Captain Eichert. ‘Anyone who wants to clear off, break out or whatever… please, be my guest, I won’t try to stop you. As for me, I’m going to end it all. I’m not going to be taken prisoner.’
‘End it all? No, don’t even think of it!’ said Jankuhn. ‘The Russians aren’t going to eat us! And Siberia’s supposed to be a very pretty place. Lots of prisoners were housed there during the last war and are still living there now. And if need be, there’s an escape route to Manchuria or even India. As long as there’s still a chance, you can always “end it all” later if you want to!’
‘Captivity means death, we know that!’ interjected Lieutenant Bonte. ‘Why let ourselves be butchered when we can choose our own way to go?’
He and a group of friends were determined to try to fight their way through to the German lines. Since only his lower arm was shot up, he reckoned he stood a good chance.
‘What Paulus has written there is a lie,’ said Breuer firmly. ‘This whole order is one big, miserable lie! Believe me, I’ve interrogated any number of Russians, many of them senior staff officers. The Russians treat their prisoners well. Whether we can survive captivity after all these weeks of starvation is another matter. But no one’s going to be mistreated or killed, that’s for sure.’
There was great excitement during the night. Findeisen, who had gone outside on a ‘call of nature’, rushed back in, breathless.
‘Outside… quock, quock… Roight here across the street, it londed roight over there!’
He’d spotted a parachute supply drop. A search party was sent out. After just a few minutes they returned dragging a sack of bread.
‘Oho, that’ll keep the wolf from the door all right!’ cried Eichert. ‘We can really live high on the hog in our final hours. The men’ll be amazed!’
Air-dropped supplies had to be handed in. The penalty for disobeying this order was death.
The fifty loaves in the sack were distributed. Every man under Eichert’s command received a quarter-loaf. Shortly afterwards – they’d indulged in a night-time feast and were still chewing away with full cheeks – a furious paymaster appeared, in the company of two military policemen.
‘You’ve recovered a supply drop!’ he said, eyeing their masticating faces suspiciously.
‘That’s right,’ replied Eichert, ‘so what?’
‘The drop landed in the zone controlled by our division. I demand you hand it over right now!’
‘The food stays here,’ responded Eichert calmly. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes, however. ‘It tastes just as good to our men as it would to yours.’
The paymaster was quivering with indignant rage.
‘So you’re refusing?’ he shouted. ‘Then I’ll have you arrested! And you know what’ll happen to you then!’
Eichert had stood up. He reached for his machine-pistol.
‘Arrested?’ he growled. ‘We’ll see about that! We’ve decided not to fire another shot in anger. But I’m willing to make an exception where these last few bits of bread are concerned. Now get out of here!’
He raised his gun.
‘I’ll count to three. If you aren’t gone by then, you’re dead meat!’
The others had risen to their feet too. The paymaster struggled for words.
‘One…’ Eichert began counting and cocked the gun. ‘Two…’
The paymaster turned abruptly on his heel and disappeared with his two companions. Hoots of derision followed him out of the door.
The Russians advanced from the west, forcing the exhausted division to defend its own rear. Bombs and artillery shells rained down, destroying what little was left of the city. And one day it was clear: this was definitively the end…
General von Hermann searched out his best uniform tunic and pinned on all of his medals, including the Knight’s Cross he’d not yet worn here in Stalingrad. A stickler for correctness, he pinned it on back to front. There was no swastika on the reverse, only the date 1813. Then he summoned the divisional chaplain. He handed him his signet ring, his wedding ring and a letter to his wife. Tersely and objectively, with an expression that quashed any contradiction, he told the padre:
‘Please tell my wife that I have discharged my duty as a soldier and a staunch Christian to the best of my ability. My life has always been guided by the principle: “He who sets the direction, course and path of the clouds, air and winds will also guide me on my way.”[7] Stay with the wounded, padre, and don’t be afraid!’
As he did every day, he bade farewell to his chief of staff and departed. He left a slip of paper behind on his desk. On it was printed the latest ‘watchword’ from the top brass: ‘It is not dishonourable to be taken prisoner. It is not dishonourable to turn one’s weapon on oneself. It is not dishonourable to break out!’ Diagonally across this note, the general had written, in capital letters: ‘It is not dishonourable to consider one’s duty and honour!’
He walked out towards the western front of the Cauldron. His batman followed him, carrying two carbines. He passed lines of soldiers streaming away from the front.
The army was disintegrating. He didn’t attempt to halt the flow. Let them run and save themselves any way they could. He had just one account to settle, namely his own. What came after that was not his concern.
The sound of rifle fire drifted over from the railway embankment, along with the asthmatic chattering of a machine gun. Craters made by mortars and shells lay all about. On the road stood a short, stockily built general, the commander of the neighbouring division. He was shouting and waving his arms and trying in vain to hold back his fleeing men. His voice was already hoarse from the effort. ‘What are you doing here?’ von Hermann asked. ‘Come with me!’
The little general took off his fur cap and wiped the beads of sweat off his bald pate.
7
‘He who sets the direction, course and path of the clouds…’ – a line from the hymn ‘