by Stalingrad- The City that Defeated the Third Reich (epub)
Postwar German historians have stressed the fatigue and defeatism that prevailed in much of the Wehrmacht during the final days of the battle. The Stalingrad transcripts paint a very different picture, at least in part. Though many captured soldiers called out “Hitler kaput” to avoid being shot, the level of armed resistance the Soviets encountered in “Fortress Stalingrad” was extraordinarily high. Major Anatoly Soldatov explained to historians that at the end of February his soldiers found six Wehrmacht officers in a bombed-out house with a three-week supply of butter and canned food. An NKVD report noted that on March 5, 1943, uniformed German soldiers attacked a senior lieutenant and a sergeant. In a subsequent manhunt Red Army soldiers found and killed eight German officers equipped with pistols and a radio transmitter.147 The Romanians, Czechoslovakians, and Greeks who fought alongside the Germans expressed relief when captured; for them the war was over.148 By contrast, many of the Germans, particularly officers, were cavalier, confident that the Germans would eventually prevail.
The interviews below took place on February 28, 1943, and after. Some occurred in Beketovka, where the main headquarters of the 64th Army was located, others at the department store in Stalingrad. The interviews were conducted by Esfir Genkina and transcribed by stenographer Olga Roslyakova.
THE SPEAKERS
38th Motor Rifle Brigade
Major General Ivan Dmitrievich Burmakov149—Commander of the 38th Motor Rifle Brigade
Lieutenant Colonel Leonid Abovich Vinokur—Deputy commander for political affairs
Major Alexander Georgievich Yegorov—Chief of the political section
Major Anatoly Gavrilovich Soldatov—Deputy chief of the political section, secretary of the brigade party committee
Captain Ivan Zakharovich Bukharov—Political section instructor
Captain Lukyan Petrovich Morozov—Deputy commander for political affairs, 1st Battalion
Junior Lieutenant Georgy Grigorievich Garin—Reconnaissance platoon commander
Junior Lieutenant Nikolai Petrovich Karpov—Executive secretary for the Komsomol, 3rd Battalion
Junior Lieutenant Nikolai Alexandrovich Timofeyev—Reconnaissance company commander
Senior Sergeant Alexander Ivanovich Parkhomenko—Scout
Junior Sergeant Alexander Semyonovich Duka—Mortar man, 2nd Battalion
Junior Sergeant Mikhail Ivanovich Gurov—Submachine gunner and signaler
36th Guards Rifle Division
Major General Mikhail Ivanovich Denisenko—Commander of the 36th Guards Rifle Division
Guards Colonel Ivan Vasilievich Kudryavtsev—Deputy commander for political affairs
Senior Lieutenant Fyodor Ivanovich Fyodorov—Commander of the 6th Battery, 65th Guards Artillery Regiment
Command Staff of the 64th Army (which includes the 38th Mortar Rifle Brigade and the 36th Guards Rifle Division)
Lieutenant General Mikhail Stepanovich Shumilov—Commander of the 64th Army
Major General Konstantin Kirikovich Abramov—Member of the Military Council
Colonel Matvei Petrovich Smolyanov—Chief of the political section
Captain Yakov Mironovich Golovchiner—Chief of the political section’s 7th Section150
Major General Ivan Dmitrievich Burmakov (Commander of the 38th Motor Rifle Brigade): We were recently held in reserve for the 64th Army. We were held back for two weeks. Even during this great breakthrough151 they still held us in reserve. We all resented it. Several times I asked the commander to send us in, but he said: “I know what I’m doing, don’t tell me what to do! You get ready to fight!”
Lieutenant General Mikhail Stepanovich Shumilov (Commander of the 64th Army): The front commander ordered us to turn to the northwest again and attack along the Volga together with 62nd Army and clear the city as far as the Long Ravine. [ . . . ] We cleared the enemy out of all parts of the city south of the Tsaritsa River. But we didn’t manage to cross the Tsaritsa. It’s such an excellent natural barrier—tall, steep banks. Stone buildings housed the German army’s officer and gendarme regiments, who had taken up the defense. Those units offered strong resistance, and we weren’t able to get past the Tsaritsa that day.
We had to reorganize the attack some other way, and in any case we’d taken so many losses—riflemen, for the most part—that we needed reinforcements and reserves. They sent in the 38th Motor Rifle Brigade, which was ordered up from the army’s left flank. They were to advance along the railroad and force their way into the city center, thereby assisting the attacking forces of the 29th and 36th divisions on the left flank. The 36th Division and the 38th Motor Rifle Brigade managed to cross the Tsaritsa. Nine tanks crossed and started moving toward the center of the city.
[ . . . ] We didn’t have enough manpower, so we brought in the artillery. We’d bring twenty to forty guns—even the 122mm guns—to fire directly at a single building. After one salvo we’d tell the Germans to surrender. If they refused, we’d fire another one or two before telling them to surrender again. Two or three salvoes were usually enough. Their strongholds in the buildings fell one after the other.
Captain Lukyan Petrovich Morozov (Deputy commander for political affairs, 1st Battalion): On January 28, 1943, I got a field order. [ . . . ] We took it to every soldier, held party and Komsomol meetings, spoke individually with the men. As part of our daily party-political work we studied comrade Stalin’s Order no. 345 and his report from November 7. Every soldier knew both of these. This improved their iron military discipline, increased the authority of their commanders, and raised the men’s self-awareness.
We held a meeting right before the battle. After the meeting forty-six people applied for party membership. These were the best of our soldiers and officers, everyone who was going into combat. The men and officers had an incredible desire to fight. They all felt responsible for the motherland, knew their duty, and were proving their love and devotion to their country.
Junior Sergeant Alexander Semyonovich Duka (Mortar man, 2nd Battalion): On January 28 we got our orders: engage the enemy in the streets. Before we went I applied for party membership. I’d joined the Komsomol in the 178th Regiment. At nine o’clock we got our battle orders. We set out, taking a break on the way. The one thing I wanted was to know that if I died, I’d die a Bolshevik. So I decided to apply for candidate membership. I handed in my application to the party organization, to Lieutenant—I can’t remember his name. During that break there was a party meeting. I wasn’t the only one who was applying—eight of us from the battery were nominated. Two of them died in combat. Demchenko and Kovalenko were accepted, as were platoon commander Lieutenant Borisov, Tsukanov, Sergeant Kutyanin, and someone else. All this was around noon. It was freezing cold. They said that we were going into battle that day, that we would prove ourselves in battle and show the Germans they couldn’t come any farther into our land. It was our duty to crush them. When I became a party candidate I thought: I must prove myself in this battle. It all happened so fast.
Major Alexander Georgievich Yegorov (Chief of the political section): The enemy was holding the train station. They’d had it for a long time. The walls there were quite thick. It required a lot of painstaking work with the Katyushas and the big guns. They did all right there. And with this we were able to wedge ourselves fairly deep into the enemy formation. The buildings were being defended by very small groups, on the order of seven or eight men. They were using grenades primarily. Our men were given plenty of revolvers. [ . . . ] Before that they didn’t have revolvers—and they were really happy to be given them. Sometimes, especially when you’re in a pitch-dark basement, a submachine gun isn’t much use. It was so hard to work out who was who that the men had to keep close, elbow to elbow, so they wouldn’t shoot each another at night.
The fighting went on day and night.
The darkness helped us because the Germans didn’t know how many were in the basements. Brave men like Karpov, Duka—the excellent secretary of 2nd Battalion’s Komsomol organizati
on—they’d give the order right away: Company, open fire! Sometimes he’d pretend it was a whole battalion. The German soldier doesn’t know Russian very well, but he knows the words for company and battalion. Duka took about five hundred prisoners. Major Soldatov assisted him. Together they took hundreds. They just burst into the basement, and there the Germans all were, stuffed inside like sardines. They could have literally torn Soldatov and Duka to pieces. But what the Germans heard was a strong, determined voice that would allow no challenges or delays. And if they resisted, Duka would toss in a few grenades and create such a panic that they’d all be howling. They would bring whole groups of them out of the cellars at once. Once, though, not far from the candy factory they gave us a bit of a thrashing. Not too bad, but a thrashing all the same. There was a fair number of them, about a thousand men, and we had fifteen. So we decided to attack at night with more noise and more shooting. [ . . . ]
We had two mortar battalions. Once they got the call saying that some building needed to be shot at, two mortar battalions would start shooting. Can you imagine it? It demoralizes the enemy. And on top of that, they all yell “Hurrah!” Especially at night, and in the basements. When a few of you yell “Hurrah!” at the same time, it makes an impression. The men did it like this: they’d block off a building, take out the firing points. The Germans inside were in a terrible situation. They fought until they were destroyed, until there was no floor, no ceiling. There’d be nothing left but a steel girder. So then the German would get up on that and start shooting. You had to work out which window he was shooting from.
Junior Sergeant Alexander Semyonovich Duka (Mortar man, 2nd Battalion): One night we went to battalion HQ, and the commander gave us a mission. Our 4th Company needed to take this big building and push the Germans out from the basement.
We headed over there. Five men were sent up front with Lieutenant Borisov, our platoon commander. We came up close to the building we were meant to attack. We had to find the 4th Company. The platoon commander sent me to look for them. I found them. I asked for Lieutenant Nechayev, the company commander, and said twenty-five men had come to help him. He showed me that we should take this building from the street, clear it, and then attack the other building from another street.
The Germans were happily throwing grenades from there. Lieutenant Borisov was wounded in the mouth by a shell splinter and had to go to the aid station, so I was the ranking soldier in the mortar battery. There were four of us. We started attacking the building before dawn. We ran across the street to one corner of the building, and from there we went around the other side. We saw someone running away. We kept creeping our way along the wall. We made it. I noticed smoke coming from a chimney and realized they must be in there. Then a second man ran out. Once we were in the courtyard, we [ . . . ] entered the basement and told the Germans to surrender. I yelled: “Geben Sie Wachen!”152 and told them to surrender. They said nothing. Not a word. We decided to drop a grenade down the chimney, but then this old Russian man came out from the basement. He said there were civilians down there. There turned out to be eleven Germans, five wounded. We told them to put down their weapons and come out. And they did start coming out one by one. The wounded stayed where they were. Then we searched the basement. They’d brought their wounded to this basement. The woman living there helped them: she cleaned their wounds, bandaged them. While the prisoners were leaving, I was covering my guys in the basement. Then this guy runs out from a corner and shoots. He killed Sklyarov, our machine gunner, and another soldier who just collapsed there on the basement stairs.
It was just starting to get light outside. We needed to get around to the other side of this submachine gunner. We took turns running—first one, then the second, then the third. Eleven of us got across, one was wounded. It was bright by then. We were spotted by a machine-gunner in another building and he began firing on us. The rest of the men couldn’t get across. So there was just eleven of us. We couldn’t move forward.
The company commander told us to wait for support. Then our artillery started shooting. The shells were exploding close by, about twenty meters. Then they started hitting another building. We were under such heavy fire that we couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything. We were in a crater and kept our heads down, while the Germans stayed in the building. A wall came down here, and over there. We had nowhere to go. On one side there was a sniper at a window, and they were shooting from the other side too, and the machine gun was shooting from a third side. We sat like that for twelve hours. Then an infantry company went around and into the rear of the building where the machine gun was firing from. Then a tank rolled up. We started to watch its assault. We waited for the tank to come close enough that we could get behind and move forward. It started to attack another building. We watched as it took one building, moved prisoners, then took another building, until finally they took the building where the machine gun was. We watched the whole thing. Then we started climbing our way out, up one wall and down the next. [ . . . ] When I ran over there, I saw that the building where the machine gun was had been occupied. [ . . . ] Then I saw someone run out from another corner of the building with a revolver. I aimed at him. He jumped back so fast I wasn’t able to shoot. I went right over, submachine gun at the ready. I went inside. I could see carts and horses. Then these Germans were pushing toward me, shouting. There were also Russian prisoners. I told them to get out of here. These Red Army men got out: “Oh, how we’ve been waiting for you!” said one. Another said: “There’s a hole over there, then some stairs going down to a cellar. That’s where their officers are.” Then a major came running into the courtyard—I don’t know his name—along with Komsomol member Chadov, a senior sergeant. Chadov was busy with something down where the drivers were, and I was here. The major came over to me. I said: “There’s Russian prisoners here.” He said: “Bring them over.” I told them three times to come, but they didn’t. God knows what they were doing. I cocked my weapon. I went down the stairs, and one prisoner tells me: “Don’t go, don’t go, they’ll kill you.” He grabbed a revolver from someone and came with me. I went down to the basement and opened the door. It’s packed full, Germans everywhere, and this was a large basement, two rooms. I could see they’ve got batteries and headlights from cars, but at the time it was dark. I told them to turn on the lights. At first, when I entered, I shouted: “Bang!” They said: “No bang, no bang!” I stood by the door and told them to turn on the lights. They got them going from the battery. I told them: “Get ready to go.” They started tying blankets together. I started sending them out. They started handing over their weapons: they’d bring one from over here, one from over there. I said: “Leave them next to me.” They started piling them up. I started searching them, not all of them, but there were sergeant majors there, and I searched them, sent them through quickly. There was more than a thousand of them. The other room was also packed full. I started moving them out of there. We got every one of them out. The major collected them, and I put the weapons together in a pile, and the major sent them out. I went out into the courtyard, where there were cartridges on the ground, drum magazines from submachine guns. I picked them up too and put them in a pile. There was a lot of revolvers, semiautomatics, and other weapons. When I went into the courtyard they could’ve easily killed me—Bang!—and that would have been that. I went into the courtyard—nobody there. I was all on my own. The major was gone too, and so was the commissar. I went out to the street. I passed the corner where my battalion was attacking, but they’d moved on. While I was trying to work out what was going on, I saw our commissar lying dead in the street. I didn’t know where our battalion had gone.
Captain Lukyan Petrovich Morozov (Deputy commander for political affairs, 1st Battalion): At around 5:00 P.M. on the 28th we took possession of two large buildings: the candy factory and a brick building next to the railroad, not far from the crossing. We took those two buildings. The Germans had turned them into a stronghold.
We lost te
n men that day to machine guns and antitank rifles.
Seventy Germans were killed, and six hundred taken prisoner. We captured weapons: light machine guns, a lot of grenades and submachine guns. There was a large basement in the candy factory. We took that basement. There was a German hospital there. We took two hundred prisoners. That basically became our command post. When we occupied that basement, up on the right was this big white brick building, just enormous, shaped like the letter L—this was one of the enemy’s central strongholds. They’d placed heavy machine guns in the basements, cut embrasures in the walls. You couldn’t see any of it from outside. The square was open to fire from multiple directions. To take the building we’d have to launch an assault at night. On the night of the 29th we tried several times to take this L-shaped building. Nothing came of it. By the end of the 30th the building was ours, and we’d taken some eight hundred prisoners. We did lose men there, not just us, but other battalions. We had to surround them on three sides. [ . . . ] On the night of the 30th our battalion reached the theater. We took a German radio installation and four hundred prisoners. We got vehicles, supplies, and weapons—submachine guns, pistols, rifles. There were a lot of prisoners there. I captured prisoners myself, along with a representative from the special department. In one basement I captured six hundred men, including a Romanian general, a divisional commander. It was just the two of us. We didn’t have any men. We had to put them in columns. We got this crowd of soldiers into formation, and then some captain came up and led them away.