by Stalingrad- The City that Defeated the Third Reich (epub)
The prisoner said that recently, in light of the failure of the German army’s strategic plans in Russia, there is now a pressing need to merge the officer corps with the leadership of the National Socialist party. [ . . . ]
From the moment Hitler and his government took power they had the support of the vast majority of the officer corps. For a time the German army’s military successes in Europe increased Hitler’s authority. But the war with Russia—the collapse of their reckless plans to march on Moscow, to break through to Rostov and Stalingrad—has significantly undermined Hitler’s prestige. [ . . . ]
An idea has been circulating among the officers that there are favorable and unfavorable seasons for Germany; that is, many believe that Germany can and will be victorious in a summer campaign but that winter favors the Red Army.
The prisoner confirmed that the officer corps held such a view of the high command’s strategic plans, but that they did not go so far as to express their disagreements openly. Many of the generals, including General Brauchitsch,12 opposed the plan to advance on Rostov and Stalingrad, but they expressed their disagreement only by suggesting alternative plans. All discussion of the matter stopped when they received their orders. But among the other officers criticism of the risks involved in taking Stalingrad was heard all the more strongly. Describing the situation on the fronts and his own outlook on the war, the prisoner stated: “The defeat at Stalingrad and the Red Army’s advances to the west and southwest have come as a heavy blow to the German army, but this isn’t enough for us to start talking about a real turning point at the front, or about the beginnings of a German defeat. If the Red Army manages to take back Rostov and Kharkov, then that would be a strong indicator of a turning point. Then you might begin to say that the fortunes of war have turned against the German army.” The prisoner concluded: “But it’s hard to believe that the Red Army could manage to take those cities.”
During his interrogation Major Lüben said that it was wrong to think that Germany has exhausted its manpower or reached its limit. Because of the policy of using foreign workers and POWs in its industries, Germany can call up 10 or perhaps 12 million men, counting both men who of military age and those who have until now been granted exemption. Also, the German army can still bring in large numbers of men from the hospitals.
The prisoner nevertheless stated that productivity is low among foreign workers and POWs who are forced to work. And there is also the problem of blood purity. There are special laws that prohibit these groups from associating with the rest of the population, but the preservation of blood purity is still precarious, and this has become a problem. The next thing that gave the prisoner hope of a favorable outcome to the war was his trust in the unwavering discipline of the German army. Despite obvious tactical and strategic miscalculations, the level of discipline in the Germany army—according to the prisoner—gives them the possibility of later offensive operations when the time is right.
The main reason for all their misfortune, he thinks, is the weakness of their allied armies. The tragedy of the Italian army is that their junior officers have not been properly trained and assigned to the right positions. The educational system in the Italian army does not encourage, but rather discourages the formation of junior officers who will play a decisive role on the battlefield. The Romanians make good soldiers, you can get things done with them. But before the war their officers spent their time in cafés doing business of their own. They weren’t training their men, which is why the Romanian army is seriously flawed. “Yes, it’s too bad we have to work with such allies,” concluded Lüben. He accounted for the increasing numbers of Germans who were surrendering by saying that they have been let down by their allies, and he denied any lack of discipline in the German army. [ . . . ]
Concerning relations with the populations of countries occupied by Germany, the prisoner said the following: “In France there have been a number of occasions of people shooting at German soldiers in the streets, but we don’t expect any uprising in France. The French have always been a frivolous people, and now they’ve learned nothing from their defeat. They just sing and dance as they did before.”
In response to the suggestion that the prisoner might only have seen life in France from the window of a café or German restaurant, he said that he was giving his own impressions and that he didn’t know the feelings of the general masses. He also came across displays of ill will toward the Germans in Belgium and the Netherlands. He said that it had to do with people in commerce and industry whose businesses were disrupted when the Belgian and Dutch colonies were seized.
German soldiers and officers thought bad things about Russian captivity not only because surrender is considered cowardice and treason, but also because very little is known about how prisoners are actually treated in Russia. If POWs were able to write home, then people would think better of them, even in the army. That would dispel all the rumors that are circulating about being taken prisoner in Russia.
Major Koltylin, Head of the 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Major Lerenman, Instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
REPORT
on the political interrogation of Senior Lieutenant Otto Conrady, chief of intelligence, 389th Infantry Division
Dubovka, February 7, 1943
Interrogated by Captain Zayonchkovsky, senior instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Senior Lieutenant Otto Conrady. Born March 13, 1904, in Berlin. Father: police officer. German. Catholic. Graduated from the law faculty of the University of Berlin in 1926. Married, four children. Has recently worked as a senior prosecutor in Hamm (Westfalen). Home address: Hamm Westfalen, Ostenallee 93.
He was drafted into the army on August 26, 1939. He was in the reserves from December 12, 1939, until November 1940, when he was reactivated. Since July 1940 he has been working as the chief of intelligence for the 389th Infantry Division.
The intelligence unit at a divisional headquarters consists of the chief, O-3 (an aide), two translators, one draftsman, and two clerks (the last three are enlisted), as well as one sergeant major.
When asked about his division’s situation during the final days of the encirclement, Lieutenant Conrady said the following: “From mid-January we knew our situation was hopeless, but we kept up the defense because our mission was to keep these Russian armies at Stalingrad so they couldn’t take part in other offensives. It was a difficult sacrifice, but we had to do this for our country. Lately we were completely out of artillery shells and mortars. We had enough rifle and machine-gun ammunition. The food situation was awful: one hundred grams of bread per day, about one hundred grams of canned meat, some soup.
“After Field Marshal Paulus surrendered on January 31 there was absolutely no point in us continuing to resist. There wasn’t any surrender order in our division. Everything happened on its own (to a certain extent). Ten days before the surrender our headquarters was spread out over three locations. The intelligence unit was south of the Tractor factory, near the 305th Infantry Division’s main medical station. At around 7:00 A.M. (Berlin time) three Russian tanks approached the building we were in, and we surrendered. I don’t know what the situation was in other divisions. After surrendering, we were taken to Orlovka, and on the way we got robbed by Russian soldiers, who took everything we had. To be fair, the Russian officers forbade this, but they couldn’t keep track of everyone. What can I say? A la guèrre comme a la guèrre. War is war.”
Moving on to his evaluation of the Stalingrad operation, Conrady said that, even at the beginning, many officers thought it was rather risky. The flanks of the group moving on Stalingrad were exposed. This was okay at the beginning of the operation because they were expected to take Stalingrad extremely quickly before moving northward on the Ilovlin—[illegible]—Volga line, thereby creating a single front from the Volga to the Don and farther west. The Russians’ stubborn defense of Stalingrad created another situation that eventua
lly brought them to ruin. [ . . . ]
When he was describing the strengths of our Russian army, Lieutenant Conrady praised our generals highly, particularly Marshall of the Soviet Union Zhukov, who led the operations in the south.
“You learned a lot during the war and turned out to be excellent students.” Later, when he described the strength of the Red Army’s resistance, he said: “Red Army units have put up a stubborn resistance, but the bravest opponent we encountered was in August, when we were fighting on the Don at Dobrinskaya. It was the Krasnodar Officer School (Krasnodar Military Academy—Captain Zayonchkovsky). They fought like lions. When we had captured about a hundred of them, our divisional commander, General Janeke,13 lined them up and said that he had seldom seen such brave soldiers.” In his descriptions of the individual forces, Lieutenant Conrady said that the Russian artillery and mortars were very good, but that our air force was weaker than theirs: “Your air force did us very little harm, even recently it hasn’t caused much damage.”
When asked about how much the intelligence unit and the divisions knew about the forces they were up against, Conrady stated: “We were always in a rather awkward position: we obtained our basic information from prisoners and defectors. Since June 1942 we’ve had about thirty thousand of them, 95 percent of whom testified to there being strong anti-Soviet sentiments in the army: the soldiers only fought out of fear, there was a famine, and soldiers in the army would go without food for four or five days. That gave us the impression that your army was on the verge of collapse. On the other hand, we saw the stubborn resistance by Red Army forces. What was this about? I still can’t account for it. I often found myself in the awkward situation of presenting transcripts of prisoner interrogations to the general. Several times he said: ‘What sort of nonsense are you feeding me? Don’t you see these Red Army units are putting up a fierce resistance?’”
Moving on to the question of propaganda among enemy forces, Lieutenant Conrady said that this was undertaken by a special department in the army intelligence unit. This department of propaganda printed and distributed leaflets, and they also used two or three vehicle-mounted mobile radios. This department was staffed by officers, a few translators, and a few sergeants and other NCOs. When asked about the effectiveness of our own propaganda, Lieutenant Conrady said: “Your propaganda is not very effective because it influences only the morally unstable units, and even during the encirclement our men were entirely under the control of their commanders, right up to the last days. We had some who deserted and went to your side, but they were only isolated cases. I think your leaflets had the greatest influence, and as for your radio broadcasts, I’d imagine that they were not very effective. As far as I know, no one listened to them.
“We knew that that you had recently been sending over a lot of prisoners. That of course is the most effective method. After questioning them, we usually moved the prisoners you sent us to other units on other sections of the front.”
To conclude, Lieutenant Conrady was asked about the activities of the propaganda companies. The propaganda companies, Conrady said, are attached to each army. They number between 100 and 120 men. They do the following: publish the army newspaper, for which there is a special editorial team and print shop; photograph combat scenes to send to the rear and also shoot film to send to the rear (they would have as many as fifteen photographers). They also make audio recordings of men and officers telling stories of individual episodes, as well as voice recordings of people talking about various events from life at the front (there were up to ten speakers). The propaganda companies almost never work with active units on the front. It’s only when a unit is brought back to recuperate that the propaganda companies show films, hold different kinds of lectures, and also organize appearances by cabaret acts brought in from Germany.
Major Koltylin, Head of the 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Captain Zayonchkovsky, Senior instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
REPORT
on the political interrogation of POW Bredahl, Waldemar, interpreter, 389th Infantry Division
Dubovka, February 6, 1943
Interrogated by Captain Zayonchkovsky, senior instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Bredahl, Waldemar. Born in 1904 in St. Petersburg.
Lutheran. Not married. His father was an engineer who owned a stone-planing factory in St. Petersburg. He studied at the St. Petersburg High School. In 1918 he moved to Estonia with his parents, where he lived until 1940. In 1940 he settled in Germany (Posen). Profession: sales representative, worked for the Untech [?] company in Posen. Drafted on October 2, 1942. Arrived at the front on November 4, 1942, as an interpreter for the 389th Infantry Regiment’s prisoner collection point.
When asked about their disposition in the last days of the encirclement, Bredahl said: “On January 22 we fell back to Stalingrad, and most of the officers could see that further resistance was useless and would only result in a purposeless loss of life. Among themselves the officers said this openly and were even surprised that their commanders hadn’t begun negotiating a surrender. Toward the end that was all they talked about. As for the men, they didn’t know the real situation, so they kept hoping we’d get help. The main reason that we surrendered was that we’d exhausted all our resources, and also that our situation was hopeless because we couldn’t count on getting help from anywhere. On February 1 the headquarters commandant Captain Stegner called for me and ordered me, the interpreter, to go out with a white flag to announce that this building was a field hospital and would offer no resistance. On February 2 at around 8:00 A.M. there was a cry: ‘Translator, come on out, there’s three Russian tanks at the door.’ The Russian tank crews started taking our weapons and watches right away.”
“As for discipline,” Bredahl stated, “I don’t know of many times when it broke down, though it did decline in the final days before the surrender. For example, I saw some soldiers who’d been sent to the front lines show up just an hour later back at the command post. Nor did they follow subsequent commands to go back to the trenches.”
When asked about the Red Army, Bredahl said: “Your artillery is very effective, and your mortars are good too. As for the air force, it’s not as strong as ours. First of all, your airplanes are scared of our fighters, which often shoot them down, and, second, they rarely hit their targets, though lately they’ve been able to feel more at home since our antiaircraft artillery hasn’t been operating. Regarding the Red Army’s commanders, the opinion circulating among our officers is this: the Russians learned how to fight from us, the Germans, and now they can fight pretty well.”
When he spoke about the condition of Russian POWs, Bredahl testified that on January 13 his divisional command issued an order that called for two prisoners to be shot for every one that ran away. That order came in response to a rapid rise in the number of escapees in January. According to Bredahl, the order was not carried out. “Your POWs had tough conditions. They weren’t getting any bread at all recently, but before the encirclement they were getting rations of 370 grams of bread and horse soup.”
Major Lerenman, instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
Captain Zayonchkovsky, senior instructor, 7th Section, Political Department, 66th Army
[Zayonchkovsky’s signature]
A GERMAN DIARY FROM THE KESSEL
Among the documents collected by the Historical Commission in Stalingrad were two excerpts from the diary of a German private 1st class. Soviet soldiers found the diary in December 1942 or January 1943, probably among the possessions of its deceased owner. The diary was turned over to the military intelligence unit of the 62nd Army, and several extracts were translated into Russian. The preserved sections of these translations begin on November 22, when the soldier’s regiment, stationed in Kalach-on-Don, was attacked by the spearheads of Operation Uranus from the north and southeast. The joining of these spearheads in Kalach completed the Staling
rad Kessel. The diary documents the ensuing confusion, the Germans’ failed attempts to break out of the pocket, their eastward retreat toward Stalingrad, and how the men fought while subsisting on near-starvation rations. The excerpts end on December 18. By then the diary’s author sensed that death was near and wrote nostalgically of home and family. The final entries are a moving testament to the depths of human anguish.
The desperation Wehrmacht soldiers experienced in the Kessel has been well known in Germany since the publication of the anthology Last Letters from Stalingrad (original: Letzte Briefe aus Stalingrad) in 1951.14 Less well-known is how the Soviets responded to these enemy voices in distress. Following the presentation of the diary excerpts, I discuss how they were read and utilized by Red Army propagandists.
TRANSLATION
From captured documents received by the 7th Section, Political Department, 62nd Army, January 1 1943
Diary of a private 1st class in the 10th Company, 578th Regiment, 305th Infantry Division
November 22—Left Kalach at night.
November 23—Russian planes, constant air raids.
November 24—Got up at 3:45 A.M. and started the difficult march, over sandy ground, to the Don. Constant shooting. On the steep bank of the Don there were Russians. You could see them perfectly. I was always hearing shells exploding. At night we left those positions. Spent the night on frozen ground.
November 25—We lost a unit. Bombs, pilots, artillery.
November 27—A hasty retreat over the sand. We’re surrounded, it’s so cold. I’m frozen stiff. They’re shelling us.
November 28—It’s dark, and we’re all loaded up, ready to leave. Me and eight of my own. No one knows where we’re going.