The Nazis- a Warning From History

by Laurence Rees

  This was a form of warfare for which the Germans had not been prepared. ‘Hand-to-hand combat, positional warfare,’ says Joachim Stempel, ‘I don’t want to say it was entirely foreign, but they were elements of our training which were very much on the fringe. We were an offensive army, trained for attack, and we were able to defend ourselves, of course, but we didn’t have the experience of the Russian soldiers, whose training, whose nature and whose psyche of being tied to his native soil were all thrown into the mix. We didn’t have that, and I think that we had more casualties because we weren’t as close to nature as the Russians . . . The Russians had the advantage in trench warfare and hand-to-hand combat – there’s no doubt. As a tank unit, we were used to driving tanks and trying to bring the enemy down with tanks and then stopping, clearing the area and moving forward. But that was all forgotten in the past, a long time ago.’

  The frustration for the Germans was intense, for the Volga was so close. ‘Again and again, we heard, “Another hundred metres and you’re there!” But how can you do it if you just don’t have the strength left? It wasn’t attacking as we were used to attacking. Here we remained in position for weeks and tried hard to win some land, even if it’s only 10 or 15 metres which we managed to take from the Russians – that was considered a success. But the main thing was that the Russians were defending a narrow strip of land, maybe 300 metres deep, on the steep slopes down to the Volga where the command headquarters of the Russian armies and divisions were located. And the soldiers who were on duty there were completely fanatical about it, and obsessed with their mission. “You have to hold this because your generals are behind you!” And that made it impossible for us to take those last hundred metres, which was our constant aim.’

  Gerhard Münch, by now a battalion commander, quickly realized that with the available resources house-to-house combat could not be won by either side: ‘If the enemy has the stairwell or is on the first floor, then you don’t even need to try [to take the house] because you just won’t succeed. Once you get a demonstration of how unsuccessful any attempt to get into another building is, and if you’re lucky enough to get back the injured people, then you just stop trying it. And so, in this section, the whole battle came to a standstill . . . it was not possible to change anything – unless you got five new divisions that came in, but I think they probably would not have been able to do anything either.’

  Throughout the city, the German advance bogged down. The Soviet snipers who hid in the rubble of the city made any movement from cover during daylight potentially fatal. These snipers were feared and detested. They became symbolic of the dishonourable, degrading and primitive way in which many Germans believed the Battle of Stalingrad was being fought. ‘The Russian sniper who worked in our sector is again and again celebrated as a major hero,’ says Gerhard Munch. ‘I found it inwardly revolting. I always compared it with sitting in a raised hide and shooting deer – that’s got nothing to do with soldiership in my personal opinion.’

  ‘It became increasingly more difficult,’ says Joachim Stempel, ‘because every attack cost us so many casualties that it was possible to work out that, soon, there won’t be anyone left. And we knew that the Russians at night were taking people across the Volga, but we had nothing left and so we had to keep going, nailed to the spot.’ The German side received reinforcements too – but inexperience could prove swiftly fatal in the ruins of Stalingrad: ‘I can remember something that was unforgettable, a cry of joy from the battalion, when we heard: “Tonight you’ll get 60 or 70 men from the reserves.” And, of course, that was such a message of hope that it just made you forget about everything else. And then, when they arrived, these boys, all about 18 or 19 years old, had had about four weeks’ training. But that night, all hell broke loose. First, there was Russian artillery fire, then a Russian night offensive into our trenches. And with great difficulty – in fact, the commander of the battalion personally came down to the front to help me – we managed to push the Russians back out of the trenches. We lost more than half of these boys, dead or wounded, and they’d only just arrived. And the reason for that was because they lacked that sense, that instinct for danger, crisis, that you need in such situations – they just couldn’t react like the old hands were able to react.’

  Some of the fiercest fighting was for the Mamaev Kurgan, the ancient burial mound on the edge of the city. Whoever held this hill commanded a clear view of the centre of Stalingrad and the Volga just beyond. This key strategic point changed hands many times during the battle, sometimes several times in one day. Albert Burkovski took part in the fight. He had been ‘adopted’ by the Soviet 13th Guards Rifle Division, and at fourteen became one of the youngest soldiers to fight in the defence of Stalingrad. ‘I remember walking on the dead, decomposing bodies on the Mamaev Kurgan,’ he says. ‘Imagine, I put my foot on the ground and when I lift it I see that it’s all dirty with somebody’s intestines. It will never get erased from my memory . . . But the most horrible experience was when I killed the first German. The Germans made about fifteen or twenty attacks [on the Mamaev Kurgan] during the day. First came the bombing, then the artillery fire, then tanks went ahead and then the infantry. And all of a sudden I saw this German standing and looking away from me. He didn’t see me because I was all covered with dust and earth. When I saw that huge German, I immediately fired at him without standing up. When you shoot at short range, then bits of the body immediately go up. I could see bits of him and I could smell the smell of his clothes because it was very close. And my comrades began to calm me down . . . I was vomiting. Other men were saying to me, “Come on, this is just a German,” but none the less I was shivering all over. And it stayed in my memory forever.’

  To escape German bombardment the Soviet defenders dug a series of underground hideouts in the bank of the Volga. Chuikov’s headquarters were built deep in the earth only a few metres from the river. ‘If you wanted to live, you had to dig trenches and shelters,’ says Burkovski. ‘There were a lot of lice because there was no time to take a wash. But no one fell ill because our nerves were so much on edge that they didn’t let us become sick.’ A short distance along the river another Soviet commander lived in a sewer and held command meetings on planks just above the running water. The Germans had not witnessed this level of determination from the Red Army before. ‘I think only Russians can get used to such hardships,’ says Anatoly Mereshko phlegmatically.

  And it wasn’t just Soviet men who were fighting to defend Stalingrad. Relatively little attention has been given in the West to the vital contribution that female soldiers made to the fighting strength of the Red Army – at least 800,000 women served in Soviet forces during the war. Tamara Kalmykova, who became a communications officer that summer with the 64th Army, was one of the thousands of female soldiers who helped defend Stalingrad. ‘When we reached the Stalingrad front,’ she says, ‘we learnt we had to rely on ourselves and set right all the mistakes that were made in the first years of the war . . . Women were more enduring, although they are the weaker sex. As Chuikov put it, “You can trust something to a woman. You feel confident that your order will be fulfilled at any cost.” Because a woman is a mother who gives birth. Any mother is going to stand firm to protect her children the same way animals defend their cubs . . . And women were merciless. They were avenging their husbands or brothers – in the families of practically all the women who were fighting, somebody had died. And nothing remained of their homes but ashes. Anyone, from any country, would want to take revenge. And this is what called them to action and gave them the strength and patience and courage to fulfil such a difficult job.’

  Even though she was classed as a communications officer, Kalmykova also took part in the savage fighting just outside the city: ‘During the battle, when we were walking along the communications channel, there was a cry that a gunner had been killed. I ran and my friend, a nurse, ran after me. She began to bandage him but he was dead. So she lay down next to the machine gun and s
tarted firing and I helped her, giving her the cartridges, and we managed to repel the German attack. But she was killed. I felt such anger against the enemy for killing my friend . . . and I was so sorry for her. She was only eighteen. She hadn’t seen anything in life.’

  Shortly afterwards Tamara Kalmykova was able to take her revenge on the Germans – but at great personal risk. The communications cable laid to the neighbouring battalion had been cut and her commander had sent two soldiers – a man and a woman – ahead to follow the wire and repair the damage. But neither of them had returned. So he ordered Kalmykova to find out what had happened to them. ‘I followed the cable for 3 kilometres,’ she says. ‘And then I saw our young man – killed. He was lying dead, shot in the head. I went on following the cable and saw the girl. She was also dead, shot in the back of her head and in her spine. I picked up the documents of each of them and went on to look for the break in the cable so that I could repair it.’

  ‘Suddenly I noticed a German in the bushes. I thought it was my end. I began to crawl back, but the heavy rifle that I had made it difficult. But the German had a sub-machine gun. It was easy for him to fire his sub-machine gun and to kill me, but he wanted to take me alive as a prisoner for interrogation because he saw I was a communications officer and knew a lot. But I managed to shoot at him. He fell down. At first I didn’t believe he was really dead because I thought he was playing a trick and that he wanted me to go towards him. When I was sure he was really dead, I approached him. I didn’t look at his face. I just put my hands into his pockets to get his documents. I felt a real repulsion when I was picking things from his pockets. But if I hadn’t brought his documents back, they wouldn’t have believed that I had killed him. When I returned, my commander was surprised to see me with a German backpack and a machine gun. I fell on my bunk bed and felt very weak. It was very frightening. But nevertheless I had to do what I had done – because if I hadn’t I would have been killed. If you stayed idle, then you would surely die. Either you act against him or he acts against you. The logic is clear.’

  Determined Soviet resistance had meant that the initial German thrust into the heart of the city had been held in September. By October, despite more fierce German attacks, the Red Army still held a strip of land in front of the Volga. Hitler was impatient. The 6th Army contained more than 300,000 men – why couldn’t they take one ruined town? But the problem, as the German veterans of Stalingrad still emphasize today, was that even Paulus did not have enough men at his disposal to be sure of eliminating the Red Army soldiers who hid in the buildings and the sewers. The Volga, which the Germans had initially believed acted to their advantage in that it prevented the Soviets’ retreat and made reinforcement hazardous, now became a hindrance since it prevented the 6th Army completely encircling their enemy.

  Whilst the Germans wrestled with the unexpected difficulties that this new situation presented, Stalin and his generals debated how they should respond. Gradually, since the débâcle at Kharkov in May, Stalin had become less dogmatic in his military thinking. Now junior commanders were taught the German tactics of Blitzkrieg. ‘I have to admit that we learnt to fight from the Germans,’ says Tamara Kalmykova. ‘Specifically, in coordination of troops, reconnaissance, communications and cartography.’

  A key part of the learning process was to build on the practice of sending snatch squads across the German lines to capture prisoners for interrogation. These missions were dangerous in the extreme. Suren Mirzoyan was selected with one of his comrades for just such a task in the summer of 1942. They crept across no-man’s-land until they encountered the enemy: ‘We found out in what buildings the Germans were and then we crawled through the potato fields, we crawled and crawled and crawled until we got near one German guard. He was pacing to and fro with his machine gun. I was very nervous – I was sweating with nerves because I wondered what would happen if other Germans detected us. As soon as this guard turned round, I hit him on the head. I was very strong. He immediately collapsed, screaming, but I shut his mouth and began to pull him along. After we’d dragged him for several metres the Germans opened fire, but we successfully got him back to headquarters about 8 kilometres away.’

  The psychological impact of these snatch squads on the German soldiers was enormous. Helmut Walz, fighting in the rubble of Stalingrad, remembers once looking round to see that their medical orderly had disappeared from view: ‘We called out, “Medical, where are you?” But he didn’t answer.’ During their search for him the Germans found a drain cover leading to the underground tunnels of the sewage system. Shocked, Helmut Walz shouted to his comrades: ‘They pulled him down there!’

  The pressure on the Soviet intelligence officers to get every scrap of useful information from these captured German soldiers was intense. An insight into just how such interrogations could be conducted during the war comes from Zinaida Pytkina. At first glance today she resembles one of the many grandmothers who trudge the streets of Russian provincial towns, wrapped like parcels against the biting wind. But her penetrating stare and directness of manner mark her out. For Zinaida Pytkina was selected during the war to serve in the most secret security service of all in Stalin’s state – SMERSH. Until the fall of Communism she dared not tell even her own close friends just what she had done during the war.

  So beloved of thriller writers, SMERSH (the Russian acronym stands for ‘Death to Spies’) actually did exist. Officially known as the Main Directorate for Counter-Intelligence, it was formed on 14 April 1943, three months after the Red Army retook Stalingrad, and replaced the so-called Special Departments of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs’ Third Directorate. Their job, as Pytkina puts it discreetly, was ‘to look after order’ but ‘silently’. As well as searching for enemy agents – and interrogating prisoners captured by the snatch squads – SMERSH also policed the loyalty of Soviet soldiers under the guise of investigating ‘subversion’.

  When Pytkina was told that she had been selected for SMERSH (she had not applied to join – they had chosen her) she was frightened. Perhaps, she thought, she had done something wrong: ‘They look for offenders against the law, and I thought in the beginning that maybe I was a law offender too.’

  When Pytkina was asked to ‘describe her mission’ within SMERSH she replied: ‘My mission was to fulfil all the orders of my commanders.’ But what did she actually do? ‘Whatever we were told,’ she answered. Only later did she become more forthcoming and admit that part of her job was to recruit informers inside the Red Army to spy on possible deserters. Another of her tasks was to participate in the interrogations of German soldiers captured by the Soviet snatch squads – work she describes as ‘hard, tricky and interesting’.

  How, when interrogating captured German soldiers, could SMERSH officers tell if their captive was telling the truth? ‘We knew in advance about the kind of information the officer had,’ she replied. ‘Both SMERSH and military intelligence already had part of the information that was expected from this German, and the rest was up to the specialist.’

  ‘How did the “specialist” extract this information?’

  ‘If he [the prisoner] doesn’t answer, then we had to make him talk.’

  ‘How did they make them talk? Did the Russians give the prisoners vodka?’

  ‘I’ve never seen anyone being given vodka: just hit him or beat him,’ she answered. ‘Well, there’s an enemy in front of me and this enemy is reluctant to give me what I want. If he gets a “wash” once or twice, then he will sing. This is why he was taken prisoner, to give information.’ (‘Wash’, it transpires, was a euphemism for torture beatings. Later in the interview, when she was again asked, ‘How did you make the Germans talk?’ she answered even more equivocally and with deliberate irony: ‘I don’t know how to put it. Those who kept silent – they were treated “gently”. No one wants to die.’)

  Zinaida Pytkina didn’t just, on occasion, interrogate snatched prisoners but also took part in what could be the final stage
of their journey through SMERSH – their execution. On one occasion she was told by her commanding officer to go and ‘sort out’ a young German major whose interrogation had been completed. Outside the interrogation building a pit had been dug and the German officer was ordered to kneel beside it. Pytkina drew her pistol (‘My hand didn’t tremble’), pointed it at his neck and pulled the trigger. His body fell into the pit. ‘It was joy for me,’ she says, describing her emotions at that moment. ‘The Germans didn’t ask us to spare them and I was angry . . . I was also pleased. I fulfilled my task. And I went back into the office and had a drink.’

  When asked to explain in more detail why she felt this way after killing this German officer in cold blood, she replied: ‘I am sorry for my people. When we were retreating we lost so many seventeen-, eighteen-year-olds. Do I have to be sorry for the German after that? This was my mood . . . As a member of the Communist Party, I saw in front of me a man who could have killed my relatives. . . . I would have cut off his head if I had been asked to. One person less, I thought. Ask him how many people he killed – did he not think about this? . . .

  ‘I understand the interest in how a woman can kill a man. I wouldn’t do it now. I would do it only if there was a war and I saw again what I had seen during the war . . . They had been captured, and people like him had killed many Russian soldiers. Should I have kissed him for that? . . . I even used to ask to be sent on reconnaissance missions to capture a prisoner, but it wasn’t allowed. Women were not sent on such missions – but I wanted to go. I wanted to crawl to the enemy’s side and to capture a prisoner, perhaps kill him.’