Disaster at Stalingrad
Page 31
The Kremlin, Office of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR, 11 November 1942
Stalin knew the game was up and sank into that same depression that had sent him to his dacha after the German invasion of 22 June the year before. Now he just sat in his Kremlin office and stared at the walls. Frantic calls from Zhukov and Rokossovsky went unanswered. Abakumov and the delegation from the Politburo found him there. He said, ‘I did not summon you.’
Khrushchev answered, ‘No, that is not the normal procedure when someone is about to be arrested.’
Stalin jerked upright. The old look of overwhelming malevolence filled his face, that look that had quailed so many others, that look that spoke death. Khrushchev’s jaw dropped. Another man simply voided himself in terror. A shot made them all jump. Stalin flew backwards into his chair and fell like a rag doll onto the floor. Abakumov held a smoking pistol. ‘I warned you all. A bullet is much safer than an arrest warrant.’ He turned his own cruel face on them, then went over to Stalin’s desk, kicked the body aside, righted the chair, and sat down.
CHAPTER 15
Coda
Brest-Litovsk, Ukraine, 22 November 1942
Vyacheslav Molotov’s stony expression masked an acid hatred. That he, the Soviet Foreign Minister, had to come to beg terms from the fascists was enough to make him gag. But the Germans, being what they were, could not help but heap indignity on the Soviet delegation. The gloating expression of his counterpart, Joachim Ribbentrop, that loathsome bully, made him want to leap across the table and throttle him.
Ribbentrop greeted Molotov with a smirk, ‘We meet again, Herr Molotov.’ The Russian ground his teeth. Their last meeting had been to sign the notorious German-Soviet nonaggression treaty of 1939 that allowed Stalin to gobble up the Baltic republics and share in the conquest of Poland. Then they had been equals. Now, the Russians had come as supplicants.
The Germans could not help gloating, a national characteristic. They knew that the death of Stalin at the hands of the NKVD had cast the apple of discord among the Soviets, with Red Army and secret police units in open combat in Moscow itself. The war itself had ground to a halt as the Germans prepared to gather the fruits of victory from a broken foe and the Russians were consumed by a growing civil war. To stir the pot more they had released General Vlasov and his followers to wage his anticommunist crusade.1
Molotov was not even allowed to beg for terms. They were thrown in his face as the Celtic conqueror of Rome, Brennus, had thrown his sword on the tribute scales, saying ‘Vae victis!’ (‘Woe to the conquered’). Always one for cloaking an event in a precedent of the past, Hitler had chosen Brest-Litovsk as the site of the peace conference between Germany and the Soviet Union, or rather as the place where he would dictate terms. He had done the same at Compiègne in France, choosing the same railroad car in which the victorious allies of World War I had forced a humiliating armistice upon the Kaiser’s army in November 1918. Brest-Litovsk had been the place the Imperial German Army had dictated peace to a broken, revolution-convulsed Russia in the winter of 1917–18. Hitler savoured the fact that the second treaty was an even twenty-five years after the first act and on the same stage.
As to the terms, they were worse than 1917-18. The Soviet Union would lose the Ukraine, Belarus, the three Baltic states, Moldova, the Caucasus, the three Transcaucasian Republics, the Kuban, and the vast area from Stalingrad to the Caspian Sea. The Finns would recover all the territory that they had lost in the Winter War of 1939-40 and more, and Romania would receive Moldova. Turkey’s spoil would be large chunks of Georgia along the Black Sea coast, and all of Azerbaijan, but not the oilfields around Baku. Germany would keep the rest. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as well as the Crimea would be absorbed into the Reich proper. Belarus, the Ukraine, and the Kuban would be administered as conquered territories in accordance with Hitler’s Lebensraum policy. Georgia and Armenia would become German client states. A special demand that heaped the bitterest humiliation on the Russians was the surrender of Leningrad. Hitler was determined to deny a broken Russia an outlet on the Baltic. In any case, there would soon be no city there. He was going to level this symbol of Russia’s great power status established by Peter the Great when he built the city in 1712. More important by far was his vengeful will to smash utterly the cradle of Bolshevism.2
Evil had triumphed.
Toulon, 23 November 1942
Major Fölkersam enjoyed playing dress up. Perhaps it had something to do with the nature of the Brandenburgers’ special operations mentality. He had earned a promotion and a Knight’s Cross after the coup de main at Maikop for dressing up like an NKVD officer. For the Soviets it had been a very stylish uniform. But it did not hold a candle to the uniform of an SS officer that he now wore. He had to admit it was a splendid fashion statement. He actually preened himself in the mirror that morning, admiring himself in his black and silver.
Now he was standing by the roadside in the leafy outskirts of this French city looking every inch the SS Sturmbannführer. At least the Knight’s Cross at his throat was real. His detachment of Baltic Germans, also dressing the part, manned the checkpoint. Every man had been with him at Maikop. He looked at his watch. It had been more than convenient that Heydrich was a man of rigid pattern. It had nearly cost him his life when the British had sent their assassination team to Prague. Like clockwork he left his residence at precisely the same hour every day and drove down precisely the same route without escort. He was telling the Czechs he despised them. Only he had the devil’s own luck to be unexpectedly out of town that day they lay in wait for him. Heydrich was the living embodiment of the German saying, ‘Ordnung muss herschen’ (‘Order must rule’).
That he would be travelling down this road today was something that had not been overlooked. Canaris had kept a finger on his every movement, something he kept Fölkersam constantly aware of. The major looked at his watch again just as the black car with its SS flags turned round a bend in the road. ‘Just like clockwork, indeed.’ he said to himself. The car was without escort, an act of bravado Heydrich had used as he had driven through the streets of Prague. ‘You make this too easy.’
The car slowed as it approached the checkpoint. Fölkersam’s men jumped to attention, as the major met the car just as it stopped. He gave a terrific Hitler Gruss stiff-armed salute. ‘Herr Obergruppenführer, my apologies…’
The rear passenger window unrolled. Heydrich’s long face coldly looked at him. Fölkersam never forgot the look he saw on that face in the moment before he shot it between the eyes.
Stalingrad, 23 November 1942
Evil now walked through the ruins of Stalingrad savouring his victory. Around him stretched a vast sea of broken brick and concrete, with only the department store shell in any recognizable form. From its balcony flew a huge swastika. The only thing to mar Hitler’s triumph was the smell of rotting corpses, though the snow had done much to cover it. In an act of personal cruelty, he had ordered that the captured commander of the Soviet defence be there to watch him strut his triumph and rub it in the abject man’s face. Manstein had been appalled and personally offered Chuikov his apologies.
Hitler motioned his SS bodyguard and the flock of sycophants to stand back as he walked into the square in front of the building. It was obvious that Goring, Himmler and Bormann were disappointed that they could not share this historic moment and be photographed at his side. It was not sentiment, but the opportunity to be seen as sharing in the victory and ultimately inheriting it.
It could have been lucky for them, though, if they had taken their chance to hang well back in the crowd. Oberjäger Pohl’s instructions were to take out as many of these others as he could after killing Hitler. His presence had been passed off to the SS security detail as cover for any Soviet snipers who might have been left behind. He had a clean shot now from a rubble pile 300 yards away as Hitler conveniently stepped out from the crowd.3
That same thought occurred to Zaitsev. He was hi
ding in a large pipe about the same distance from Hitler but to the north. Now his sights centred on the forehead of the Fascist beast. He adjusted for the cold wind that was whipping through the ruins. The image of one of his mother’s icons flashed through his mind. It was St George spearing the dragon.4
The cold wind, Russia’s last desperate resistance, cut through Hitler’s greatcoat. But for Hitler it only served to excite the Wagnerian moment as it drove grey clouds through the sky. He could picture the Valkyries riding through the storm-tossed sky with the bodies of the new German heroes thrown over their saddles being borne to Valhalla. Again he had been right, and all his generals had been wrong. He could feel the power surge in him.
Then nothing. His head exploded. Two bullets were fired at the same instant. Pohl’s hit him in the forehead, and Zaitsev’s through the right temple. Blood and brains sprayed over the rubble.
The crowd heard the double crack and watched as Hitler’s body twisted and jerked and then fell to the ground. For that stunned instant no one moved. In that suspended time Pohl’s sight centred on Himmler, who stood out with his flock of retainers. He fired at the moment when the crowd surged forward. It was a hard shot as bodies flowed around him, but the Reichsführer threw his arms back as a bullet went through his right eye.5
Zaitsev, less familiar with the Nazi hierarchy, merely kept firing at the gaudiest of the uniforms milling around. Goring was conspicuous with his white overcoat and flashing baton; his peacock preening was his undoing. A Russian bullet struck him in the chest, and he fell with such a thud that he made the rubble bounce and brought down two of his aides. Manstein stepped aside as another Nazi party bigwig in his flashing uniform fell in front of him. He felt strong arms on him as Stauffenberg and his own aide pulled him back to the shelter of the building as the horde of courtiers fled for their cars. Major von Boeselager caught one of them by the arm, put a pistol to his stomach and fired. Martin Bormann screamed and careered off to stumble and fall amid the rubble.
Chuikov, with the instinct bred in the Rattenkrieg, bolted in the confusion. He paused at the corner of a ruined building, took a deep breath, and laughed. ‘Zaitsev! God bless you, my boy!’6
APPENDIX A
Forces in the Battle of 20° East
Germans
German Fleet (Admiral Carls)
Battlegroup 1 (Admiral Schniewind)
Battleship: Tirpitz
Heavy Cruiser: Admiral Hipper
Destroyer Flotilla 5: Friedrich Ihn, Friedrich Eckoldt, Karl Galster
Destroyer Flotilla 6: Theodor Riedel, Hans Lody, Erich Steinbrinck
Battlegroup 2 (Admiral Kummetz)
Heavy cruisers: Lützow, Admiral Scheer
Destroyer Flotilla 8: Richard Beitzen, Z-24, Z-27
Battlegroup 3 (Admiral Ciliax)
Battlecruisers: Scharnhorst, Gneisenau
Heavy cruiser: Prinz Eugen
Light Cruiser Flotilla 1: Leipzig, Nürnberg
Destroyer Flotilla 8.1: Z-28, Z-29, Z-30
U-boat Flotillas 1, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14
Luftflotte 5
KG 26: 42 He 111
KG 30: 103 Ju 88
StG 5: 30 Ju 87
KFlGr 906: 15 He 115
JG 26: 109 Fw 190
Allies
Home Fleet (Admiral Tovey)
Battleships: Duke of York, King George V, Washington
Cruisers: Cumberland, Nigeria, Kent
Destroyers: 14 ships
Aircraft carriers: Victorious (42 aircraft), Wasp (75 aircraft)
1st Cruiser Squadron (Admiral Hamilton)
Heavy cruisers: London, Norfolk, Wichita, Tuscaloosa
6th Destroyer Flotilla: Somali, Wainwright, Rowan
Convoy PQ-17, Close Escort (Commander Broome)
Destroyers Fury, Keppel, Leamington, Ledbury, Offa, Wilton
Corvettes Lotus, Poppy, La Malouine, Dianella
Minesweepers Halcyon, Salamander, Britomart
ASW trawlers Lord Middleton, Lord Austin, Ayrshire, Northern Gem
AA ships Palomares, Pozarica
Submarines P.614, P.615
APPENDIX B
Soviet Forces in Operation Uranus
Illustrations
Planning Germany’s attack on the USSR in 1941. From left, Field Marshal Keitel, Chief of Staff of OKW, Field Marshal von Brauchitsch, C-in-C of the Army, Hitler, Gen. Halder, Chief of Staff of the Army.
Marshal of the Soviet Union and brutal dictator, Joseph Stalin, was as murderous as Hitler but a far more rational war leader.
The men trying to keep the Soviet Union in the war through military aid: President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill (seated). Behind them stand (from left) Adm. King, Gen. Marshall, Gen. Dill, Adm. Leahy, and Adm. Pound.
Soviet T-34 tank refurbished and improved at the Kharkov Tractor Factory for use by the Germans.
Soviet military production was severely disrupted by the German invasion which forced the relocation of thousands of factories to the Urals and elsewhere. The tank factory at Chelyabinsk was so large it became known as Tankograd.
Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, conqueror of the Crimea, the only man Hitler could call on to retrieve the situation at Stalingrad.
Col. Gen. Friedrich Paulus, commander of the 6th Army, a competent general until the situation required him to think for himself.
Col. Gen. Walter von Seydlitz-Kurbach, hero of the Demyansk Pocket, commander of LI Corps and later of 6th Army, a man of decisive initiative.
Maj. Gen. Erhard Raus, Austrian commander of 6th Panzer Division, beloved by his men for being able to get them out of any scrape.
Reinhard Heydrich, the second man in the SS, organizer of the Final Solution, and self-styled heir to Adolf Hitler.
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, German military intelligence, and early mentor of Heydrich in the Navy.
General Georgi Zhukov, Stalin’s best general, who had saved Leningrad and Moscow. Could he now save Stalingrad?
Maj. Gen. Vasili Chuikov, the fiercely tenacious commander of the 62nd Army in the defence of Stalingrad.
Some of the hundreds of Soviet tanks destroyed in the fighting in the great bend of the Don.
British poster emphasizing the importance of the Arctic convoys in keeping the Soviet Union in the war. Red Air Force support was much exaggerated.
The nightmare of the British and the heart of the German fleet in being, the battleship Admiral Tirpitz, in Altenfjord, Norway (above); and in a US Navy recognition drawing (left).
The heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, seen here in a US Navy recognition chart, was the flagship of the greatest fleet action in German naval history.
HMS London followed by USS Wichita, two of the ships of the Cruiser Covering Force for Convoy PQ-17. Both carried eight 8-inch guns, but the Wichita was better armoured.
Flagship of the Allied naval force protecting PQ-17, the battleship HMS King George V.
The USS George Washington finally finished off the German battleship Tirpitz.
HMS London, flagship of the Allied Cruiser Covering Force for PQ-17.
The USS Tuscaloosa at anchor in the British base of Scapa Flow shortly before the PQ-17 operation.
The cruiser USS Wichita with the splashes of near misses from heavy enemy shells visible just beyond.
The Hawker Sea Hurricane was the Royal Navy’s fighter aboard HMS Victorious. The parent Hurricane type was already obsolescent by 1942.
The Royal Navy’s Fairey Albacore torpedo bombers on HMS Victorious were slow and obsolete.
The Douglas TBD torpedo bombers aboard USS Wasp in 1942 were slow and already outdated by Pearl Harbor.
The Vought SB2U Vindicator dive bomber (USS Wasp) was the US Navy’s first monoplane and already obsolete before the war started. It was no match for the Focke Wulf Fw 190.
The Junkers Ju 88 bomber was fast and had the range to go after the Arctic convoys.
The American merchant ship SS John Witherspoon, sunk by U-2
55 in the Battle of Bear Island.
Convoy PQ-17’s thirty-five merchant ships in formation as they approach Bear Island.
General der Jagdflieger Adolf Galland coordinated the Luftwaffe forces at the Battle of 20° East.
Captain Josef ‘Pips’ Priller’s Focke Wulf Fw 190s were the terror of the Battle of 20° East.
Lt. David McCampbell, here doing duty as deck landing officer, shot down six German aircraft at the Battle of 20° East, earning the title of ace, and went on to become the US Navy’s top ace of the war in the Pacific.
The carrier USS Wasp (behind) and the cruiser USS Wichita in the British fleet base at Scapa Flow in the late spring of 1942.
Lt. McCampbell (left) waves off an RAF Spitfire from the flight deck of the USS Wasp during the Malta mission that preceded convoy PQ-17.
USS Wasp mortally wounded by dive-bomber attack in the Battle of 20° East. The Wasp’s teak deck offered no protection, unlike the armoured decks of British carriers.