He nodded towards a wide set of bunk beds where some men lay snoring beneath furs and blankets. One of the men was flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. He wasn’t snoring but struggling to catch his breath. His hands clutched convulsively at his chest.
‘Was he badly wounded?’ asked Breuer.
‘Shrapnel in his side. We don’t have a doctor here. The medical orderly’s given him till tomorrow morning. He’s dying from internal bleeding. Oh, well… Care for some cigars?’
He handed the lieutenant a little box of fine sand-leaf cigars decorated with elaborate banderoles. The song’s chorus squawked from the gramophone for the third time:
The encircled army’s situation had become hopeless. It was no secret any longer to anyone who had managed to retain even a modicum of common sense. In these critical days, many high-ranking officers attempted to gain access to the supreme commanders and bring their influence to bear. One of these was Colonel Kniffke. It was with very mixed feelings that Kniffke had flown into the Stalingrad Cauldron at the beginning of January.
His orders had been to ‘establish the communications groundwork for the Sixth Army to break out or for an external rescue mission’. Some assignment! Particularly when no one at Army High Command was making any bones about the fact that no more help would be forthcoming for the men trapped at Stalingrad – either inside the Cauldron or from outside. He was under no illusions, then: flying into Stalingrad was like being given a free pass to view the mortuary.
Up till now, the colonel had only seen the war from the perspective of a high-ranking staff officer. He was cock of the walk among the young women reservists who staffed the Wehrmacht’s signals network from the Bay of Biscay to the River Don. The outward sign of his key role glittered on his chest in the shape of the ‘German Cross’, a gaudy Nazi decoration that ordinary soldiers nicknamed the ‘Fried Egg’ or the ‘Party Insignia for the Shortsighted’.[1] Under these circumstances, however, he did not feel much inclination to die a heroic death for Hitler. And who could blame him? Even so, if the colonel had still embarked on his journey with any hope at all, then it was because he was flying to an army staff headquarters. They would surely find some way out before the worst happened. It was inconceivable that the country’s leaders would allow an entire staff of top brass simply to be snuffed out!
Yet what he subsequently saw and heard when he was with the Sixth Army shocked him to the core. People there were sticking their heads in the sand or seeing things through rose-tinted spectacles. ‘A breakout!’ they laughed when he told them about his assignment. ‘Surely someone’s coming to bail us out of here, aren’t they?’ But all his pleas and entreaties (He was sure a rescue mission was planned! He knew how things stood over there!) fell on deaf ears. No one took him seriously. And then came the collapse of the Cauldron from the tenth of January onwards. That was a fine mess, to be sure! Hadn’t he always predicted just that? But even now, nothing was happening, absolutely nothing. It almost seemed as though they were wanting to do Hitler a favour and fight to the very last man standing, including the last member of the armed forces staff.
Colonel Kniffke grew increasingly nervous. And that was the reason he was standing here now, having a private meeting with the C-in-C without the Führer’s knowledge. Overnight he had felt renewed hope when he thought about how persuasive a speaker he could be. And he was more than a little flattered by the thought that he might, setting aside all questions of personal vanity, become the saviour of the entire Sixth Army. The colonel had thought the whole matter through very carefully. He made no mention of ‘signals girls’ or of his mission (which had long since ceased to be realistic). Instead, he talked about all the things he’d experienced here, through speaking to commanders in the field on the ’phone: the troops’ hunger, the hopelessly unequal struggle in the absence of heavy weapons with dwindling supplies of ammunition and lacking properly fortified positions and adequate winter clothing. And about the abject failure of the Luftwaffe, which at the time was only managing to fly in around forty tons of supplies daily (barely one-seventh of what was needed); about the increasing signs of disintegration and the growing numbers of wounded and sick that could not be cared for. He spoke eloquently – perhaps too eloquently.
‘In the west, there’s no longer a watertight front to speak of. We can hold out for ten days more at the most. But ten days’ worth of desperate, if heroic, fighting isn’t going to help anyone any more. I would respectfully ask the Colonel General to consider what these ten days might mean for us. The breakup of the army, the chaos and the senseless slaughter of us all! The Russians are still standing by their offer of an honourable surrender. That couldn’t possibly compromise any larger military strategies now. And there’s no help to be expected from outside any more. I’m giving the Colonel General my solemn word of honour: I can assure you no help will be arriving! I pride myself on knowing how things stand over there. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, after all! They’ve written us off. That’s why – and I’m sure the Colonel General will forgive the forwardness of an honest German concerned about the welfare of his compatriots – I’m begging and imploring you to take this step! The Colonel General holds all our fates in his strong hands… please capitulate now!’
Colonel General Friedrich Paulus sat calmly and collectedly at the table, his slender hands folded in front of him and resting on the tabletop. His head, with its wispy hair flecked with strands of grey, was slightly bowed, and his face displayed a quiet courteousness. His eyelids, though, were afflicted by an unsettling and uncontrollable blinking and twitching. Nothing in his demeanour gave any sign of the deep distaste he felt for this garrulous colonel they’d saddled him with, this windbag who was speaking so glibly about the most difficult topic of all, these terrible matters that tormented him day and night. He reached over to a side table and picked up a note, which he passed to Knippke with his fingertips.
‘Read this, please!’
The colonel jammed his rimmed monocle into his eye and read the note. The red slip of paper, printed on both sides with smudged ink, was a leaflet produced by the Red Army. It gave an exhaustive overview of the situation, which was accurate on all points and really quite restrained in its presentation of the facts. It came to the conclusion that further German resistance was fruitless. The colonel looked up.
‘What do you have to say to that?’ enquired Paulus.
‘It… Well, every word of it’s true, Colonel General.’
‘It’s also virtually word for word what you just said. Have you seen this pamphlet before?’
‘Colonel General, I really must protest!’ The colonel’s tone was one of polite indignation. He genuinely didn’t know the pamphlet.
‘Then how is it that you’re saying exactly the same thing?’
‘Because…’ Groping for a reply, the colonel pulled a face like a constipated sheepdog. Then the answer suddenly came to him. ‘Because it’s the truth!’ he blurted out vehemently. ‘There is only the one truth, Colonel General!’
The commander-in-chief stood up, his bushy eyebrows raised.
‘If I were to follow your advice, I’d be doing exactly what the enemy wants. It’s out of the question for that reason. True or not, it’s quite impossible!’
1
‘German Cross’ (German: