Capt. Gerhard Meunch. After serving as a general staff officer in the German Armed Forces High Command, Meunch spent many postwar years in school and business. Returning to the newly created West German army, the Bundeswehr, in 1956, he now holds the rank of general.
Lt. Hans Oettl. Released to his home in 1949, Oettl married and resumed his post with the city administration in Munich, where he continues to live.
Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus. Except for a brief visit to Nuremburg to testify against the Nazi leaders, Paulus spent the rest of his life behind the Iron Curtain. He lived in Russia until 1952, then went to Dresden, in the Communist East Zone of Germany. He never saw his wife Coca again. Because he had lent his name to the “anti-Fascist” officers group in Soviet prisons, the Gestapo imprisoned her. Rescued from an Alpine detention center by American soldiers, she died at Baden-Baden in 1949.
Paulus’s final years were bitter ones. Reviled by some critics for his subservience to Hitler, stung by histories and memoirs that accused him of timidity, he wrote copious rebuttals to these charges. His son Ernst visited him several times; his other son, Alexander, had been killed at Anzio in 1944. Paulus believed that communism was the best hope for postwar Europe, and Ernst noted sadly that his father “had gone over to the other side.”
The field marshal died in 1957 after a lingering illness. In 1970, his son Ernst committed suicide. He was fifty-two, his father’s age when he surrendered his Sixth Army at Stalingrad.
Sgt. Jacob Pavlov. A Hero of the Soviet Union for his fifty-eight-day defense of the apartment building at Solechnaya Street, Pavlov fought on to Berlin. To this day he is known to countless admirers as the “Houseowner” for his incredible achievement.
Sgt. Alexei Petrov. In the spring of 1943, Petrov finally heard dreadful news about his family. A sister-in-law wrote that his entire family had been reported killed by Nazi occupation troops. The information was correct; Petrov never found any trace of his relatives.
Sgt. Albert Pflüger. His wounded arm still crawling with lice, Pflüger marched off to prison, where he later contracted typhoid fever. Invalided home in 1949, he now makes his home in a suburb of Stuttgart, West Germany.
Gen. Carl Rodenburg. One of the “incorrigibles” whom the Russian government kept in jail until 1955, the monocled Rodenburg now lives in Lubeck, West Germany.
Gen. Alexander Rodimtsev. For his gallant leadership of the illustrious 13th Guards Division, the youthful general was named a Hero of the Soviet Union for the second time. Retired from active service in 1966, he now lives in Kiev.
Gen. Konstantin Rokossovsky. Stalingrad was just one of many victories for the Polish-born general as he traveled the long road to Berlin. Later elevated to marshal, he died of cancer in 1968.
Rudolph Rossler. On January 16, 1943, the director of Soviet espionage at the center in Moscow radioed congratulations to the “Lucy” network in Switzerland for its help in defeating the Germans around Stalingrad. Finally exposed as a spy by Swiss police, Rossler served a short term in jail and died in 1958 without ever revealing his sources within the German High Command.
Gen. Arthur Schmidt. The man who Hitler said would “sign anything” in captivity proved to be one of the most stubborn prisoners the Russians held. Sentenced to solitary confinement for long periods and physically abused, the dogged Schmidt always refused to cooperate with Soviet authorities who were anxious to use his name against the Nazi government. In October 1955, he returned to Hamburg, where he still resides. For years the general has continued as a highly controversial figure. His many detractors claim that he dominated Paulus and kept the battle going far beyond humane limits. Schmidt vehemently denies that he unduly influenced Paulus and claims that they rarely, if ever, argued about decisions. On one point, however, there is no doubt: that in the last weeks inside the Kessel, Schmidt’s determination to continue fighting far exceeded Paulus’s apathetic acceptance of disaster.
Col. Herbert Selle. Flown out of the Kessel in January, Selle became vocal in his opposition to the Nazi party. His associations with men who later tried to kill Hitler nearly cost him his life. Like Schmidt, he lives today in Hamburg, West Germany.
Gen. Walther Seydlitz-Kurzbach. A prime mover in the Bund Deutsche Offiziere that broadcast against Hitler, Seydlitz reaped bitter fruit. The Nazi government forced his wife to divorce him. His name became anathema to patriotic Germans, and when he declined a position in the Communist East German government, the Russians sentenced him to twenty-five years at hard labor. Repatriated in 1955 to West Germany, he faced a stony silence from former friends and the mass of German people. Now in his eighties, he has only slightly refurbished his image. In the recent wave of revulsion against Hitler’s tyranny, Seydlitz’s strong denunciations of the Nazi rulers have earned him some favor with the younger generation.
Maj. Nikolai Tomskuschin. The officer who dismissed the thought of suicide so that he might live to see his son Vladimir, never went home to Russia. Sent to Germany as a slave laborer, he survived brutal imprisonment. But after the war, like many Russians, Tomskuschin feared reprisals from suspicious Kremlin leaders and refused to board a train bound for the Soviet Union. His fears were justified. Thousands of former prisoners went home to face execution or prison terms for various misdeeds, real or imagined: collaboration, dereliction of duty in the field, or simply contamination by Western ideas.
Sgt. Hubert Wirkner. Burned, frostbitten, and aching with typhoid fever, Wirkner huddled for nearly two weeks in a Stalingrad cellar until kindly Russian soldiers carried him out to captivity. Declared unfit for labor, he received a release from prison camp in 1945. Today he lives in Karlsruhe, West Germany, is married, and the father of two children.
Gen. Andrei Yeremenko. He published a trilogy about the Russo-German War in which he condemned Stalin’s mishandling of strategy during the first year of the war. Never given full credit for his initial defensive tactics against General Hoth’s onrushing panzers south of Stalingrad in August 1942, he nevertheless enjoyed nationwide acclaim for his participation in the battle. Yeremenko died in 1971.
Lt. Vassili Zaitsev. The supersniper was credited with killing 242 Germans at Stalingrad before a land mine’s explosion temporarily blinded him. Hailed as a Hero of the Soviet Union, he married and settled in Kiev as the director of an engineering school.
Marshal Georgi Zhukov. The architect of the counteroffensive at Stalingrad failed to get proper recognition for that feat until after Khrushchev fell from power in 1964. Forced into retirement after a clash with the premier, Zhukov was rehabilited by Brezhnev and Kosygin and allowed to publish his version of the struggle for Stalingrad and other battles. Zhukov lives in a country home near Moscow.
Maj. Coelestin von Zitzewitz. The controversial “observer” inside the Kessel went into business in Hannover, West Germany, after the war. He always denied that he had been Hitler’s spy, put there because of the Führer’s lack of faith in the Sixth Army command. Zitzewitz died in 1962.
Image Gallery
German Lieutenant Emil Metzger and his wife, Kaethe, on their wedding day, 1940. (Courtesy Emil Metzger)
Lieutenant Metzger during the battle, Stalingrad, 1942. (Courtesy Emil Metzger)
Emil and Kaethe, reunited in Germany after the war. (Courtesy Emil Metzger)
One-armed General Hans Hube (“der Mensch”) commander of the 16th Panzer Division. (Courtesy family of Hans Hube)
German Panzer Lieutenant Hans Oettl in 1940. (Courtesy Hans Oettl)
Major Josef Linden, commander of the ill-fated German Pioneers. (Courtesy Josef Linden)
German panzer firing on workers’ settlement in northern section of Stalingrad. (Courtesy Ernst Wohljahrt)
German Quartermaster Karl Binder (left) and comrade celebrate Christmas Eve in bunker northwest of Stalingrad inside the Kessel. (Courtesy Karl Binder)
General Carl Rodenburg, German commander, 76th Infantry Division. (Courtesy Carl Rodenburg)
General Arthur Schmid
t, Chief of Staff, German Sixth Army. (Courtesy Arthur Schmidt)
German Sergeant Albert Pflüger of the 297th Infantry Division. (Courtesy Albert Pflüger)
Corporal Hubert Wirkner of German 14th Panzer Division. (Courtesy Hubert Wirkner)
Acknowledgments
During the past four years many people have contributed their time and knowledge to this book. They have also shown great hospitality and kindness to a stranger. My sincere gratitude is extended to the following:
Alexander Akimov, Guiseppe Aleandri, Wilhelm Alter, Max Aust, Helmut Bangert, Herbert Barber, Dora Barskaya, Raya Barskaya, Shura Barskaya, Heinrich Bartels, Eugen Baumann, Winrich Behr, Günter von Below, Luba Bessanova, Karl Binder, Felice Bracci, Hans Bräunlein, Friedrich Breining, Franz Brendgen, Franz Bröder, Mikhail Bruk, Ekkehart Brunnert, Cristoforo Capone, Horst Caspari, Ignacy Changar, Leo Checkver, Tania Chernova, Mrs. David Dallin, Franz Deifel, Gregori Denisov, Pyotr Deriabin, Fritz Dieckmann, Gerhard Dietzel, Karl Englehardt, Berthold Englert, Paul Epple, Clemens Erny, Isabella Feige, Karl Floeck, Georg Frey, Karl Geist, Werner Gerlach, Wilhelm Giebeler, Heinz Giessel, Jacob Grubner, Hersch Gurewicz, Mrs. Kurt Hahnke, W. Averell Harriman, Gerhard Hässler, Adolf Heusinger, Otto von der Heyde, R.M.A. Hirst, Mrs. Hermann Hoth, Georgi Isachenko, Donat Ismaev, Lucy Jarvis, Vasile Jirjea, Hans Jülich, Dionys Kaiser, Leah Kalei, Anton Kappler, Hermann Kästle, Liora Keren, Fritz Kliem, Heinrich Klotz, Herbert Kreiner, Wilhelm Kreiser, Ottmar Kohler, Vadim Komolov, August Kronmüller, Joseph Lapide, Heinz Lieber, Josef Linden, Eberhard von Loebbecke, Alexander Makarov, Veniero Marsan, Xaver Marx, Emil Metzger, Josef Metzler, Gerhard Meunch, Heinz Neist, Hans Oettl, Karl Ostarhild, Vittorio Paolozzi, Ernst Paulus, Wolf Pelikan, Alexei Petrov, Albert Pflüger, Boris Pishchik, Wilhelm Plass, Rudi Pothmann, Mesten Pover, Vincenzo Pugliese, Ugo Rampelli, Enrico Reginato, Herbert Rentsch, Carl Rodenburg, Manfred Rohde, Stelio Sansone, Kirill Sazykin, Arthur Schmidt, Albert Schön, Heinz Schröter, Hans Schueler, Kurt Siol, Gottlieb Slotta, Abraham Spitkovsky, Oskar Stange, Eugene Steinhilber, Giorlamo Stovali, Friedrich Syndicus, Rudolf Taufer, Nikolai Tomskuschin, Andrea Valletta, Siegfried Wendt, Hubert Wirkner, Ernst Wohlfahrt, Pyotr Zabavskikh.
There were others whose generous assistance greatly eased my journey across three continents and 50,000 miles: Konrad Ahlers, William E. Andersen, Ronay Arlt, James Atwater, Charles E. Bohlen, Patricia Carey, Edward Craig, Anatoly Dobrynin, Virginia Gough, Donald Irwin, Siegfried Kaiser, Eugene King, Joseph Kolarek, David Laor, Renata Libner, Prof. Edward A. McCormick, Neville Nordness, Charles E. Northrop, Doris Orgel, A. A. Pishchotkin, P. Ramroth, Prof. John Roche, Eugenie Schneider, Joseph Skobel, G. Sosin, Malcolm Tarlov, Prof. Peter Viereck, Lucien Weisbrod, Hans Willee.
Archives and archivists have been of tremendous value to my research:
In the United States: Office, Chief of Military History, Washington, D. C.—Charles MacDonald, Hannah Zeidlik, Earl Ziemke; The Federal Records Center, Alexandria, Virginia—Wilbur Nigh and Lois Aldridge; the National Archives, Washington, D. C.—Joseph Bauer, Thomas Hohmann and John Taylor; The Library of Congress; The New York Public Library, Main Branch; Columbia University, Butler Library and International Affairs Library; Yale University, Sterling Memorial Library; Harvard University, Widener Library; Westport, Connecticut Public Library.
In Europe: Freiburg: The Research Center for Military History—Messrs. Arenz, Hermann and Stahl; Munich: The Commission for History of German Prisoners of War—Dr. Erich Maschke; The Institute for the Study of the USSR—Leon Barat, Peter Krushin; The Institute for World History; Nuremberg: The Club for Former Stalingrad Fighters.
In Israel: Jerusalem: Yad Vashem Documentation Center.
In Russia: Volgograd: The Volgograd Defense Museum—Colonel Gregori Denisov.
And finally, special thanks to those most intimately connected with my project:
To the Reader’s Digest offices in Stuttgart: Frau Morike, Brigitte Berg, Annalise Gekeler, and, in particular, the late Arno Alexy; in Rome and Milan: Doctors Fiocca and Polla; in Washington: Julie Morgan; in New York: Jo Ann Schuman.
To Conrad Sponholz and the staff of the MacDowell Colony in Peterboro, New Hampshire, for giving me a chance to collect my thoughts.
To Richard Baron, who helped carry the burden for a long time.
To my agent Don Congdon, who so patiently listened and advised.
To Mrs. Dora Israel, a brilliant researcher, who diligently located and translated most of the Russian material.
To Kenneth Wilson, a gracious man whose faith and support meant so much to me.
To editor Nancy Kelly, whose deep sensitivity to the story and the author profoundly influenced the final draft.
And most particularly, to Bruce Lee, managing editor of the Reader’s Digest Press, whose constant encouragement and astute editorial judgment contributed immeasurably to the manuscript. From the very first day, he, more than anyone, understood the complexities and magnitude of the effort. I am deeply grateful to him.
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