Disaster at Stalingrad: An Alternate History

by Peter G. Tsouras

  As a counterweight to German air superiority, the massed guns on the east bank of the Volga smashed German communications and battalions massing for attack. Vassily Grossman, the Soviet war correspondent, wrote, ‘On the other side of the Volga, it seemed as if the whole universe shook with the mighty roaring of the heavy guns. The ground trembled.’14

  As Zaitsev and his sailor buddies were climbing into their barge, an anonymous figure was being driven along the northern flank of the German salient, sometimes within 200 yards of the German lines. It was the Deputy Supreme Commander himself. Zhukov. The next night he made a similar inspection to the south of Stalingrad. The genesis of the visit was when Zhukov had been summoned to Stalin to explain the failure of his offensive against the northern German salient. He told Stalin that he needed more reserves. Stalin picked up the map showing the location of all Stavka reserves. While he was studying it, Zhukov mentioned to Vasilevsky that they needed to find another solution.

  Stalin’s acute hearing picked it up, and he asked, ‘And what does “another solution” mean?’ The generals were surprised, and Stalin told them to go back to the General Staff and come back with something.

  The next morning they presented an audacious plan. The German salient with its head at Stalingrad offered an enormous opportunity. Its flanks were increasingly being held by the Germans’ Romanian allies, not the best of troops, to be charitable. Keep Stalingrad alive, they argued, feed just enough troops to keep the fire hot and the Germans’ attention there. At the same time assemble the mass of the Stavka reserves on either flank. Then conduct a deep encirclement on both flanks, deep enough so that 6th Army’s mobile divisions could not intervene. Late on the night of the 13th Stalin gave the plan his full backing. ‘No one, beyond the three of us, is to know about it for the time being.’ They assigned the codename Uranus to it.15

  Now Zhukov and Vasilevsky were conducting an inspection of the forces north and south of Stalingrad, the jumping-off points for the planned offensive.

  Stalingrad, 22 September 1942

  Manstein did not prowl the front lines like Zhukov. He was close enough, as far as he was concerned, at 6th Army headquarters. He had flown in almost immediately after his appointment to command Army Group B. Perhaps no senior officer on either side had as keen a grasp of battle at the operational-strategic level of war. He said to Seydlitz and Tresckow, ‘Anyone who can read a map should be horrified at the opportunity we are providing the enemy.’ He traced with his finger the salient’s long flanks.

  The enemy is not stupid. Presumably, his maps show the same things. We are spread thin and not strong anywhere. Only half of 6th Army has been engaged in the fighting for the city. The other half is spread out on the northern arm of the salient against the enemy’s constant attacks. Our allies . . .

  He hesitated and looked amused at the term:

  Our allies are also spread thin on both arms of the salient. Thus our salient consumes most of the fighting power that should have been directed at Stalingrad. And Ivan keeps feeding just enough men across the river to keep the objective out of our grasp.

  Seydlitz spoke up. ‘My old corps is about burnt out; we just keep getting weaker and weaker, suspended in this endless Rattenkrieg as my men call it now.’ Manstein could see that the man was as exhausted as his old corps. The experience of throwing away lives for this pile of rubble and twisted steel had shaken him.

  Why, in God’s name, we didn’t manoeuvre around this damned place in the first instance, I don’t know. All Paulus ever said was ‘Führer’s orders’. Führer’s orders! I told the man to object in the most forceful terms, but he seemed to think that Hitler was an infallible genius who shit Knight’s Crosses with Oak Leaves and Diamonds for those who followed his orders to the letter.

  Months of inadequate sleep showed in him. He was made of far sterner stuff than Paulus, but the campaign was hollowing even him out. Of this Manstein took careful note. ‘I tell you, Herr Feldmarschall, that we are like a candle that is about to sputter out. We need reinforcements immediately. The army is eating itself alive.’

  The field marshal said, ‘There are no reserves left on the Eastern Front that can be released.’

  ‘No reserves? You have seven divisions of your old 11th Army sitting around. We need them here. And Grossdeutschland is in reserve as well.’

  ‘They are the small change in my account. I must save them for a crisis.’

  Tresckow could see that his boss was becoming distraught and changed the subject. He asked, ‘What is the situation at OKW, Herr Feldmarschall?’ He did not mention his clandestine communication with Stauffenberg who had kept him abreast of every one of Hitler’s increasingly histrionic departures from reality.

  ‘Well, meine Herren, it all comes down to my little bank account.’ They looked puzzled, as Manstein half smiled:

  You see, when I got my marshal’s baton for taking Sevastopol, a small deposit was made to my credit in the bank of the Führer’s trust. A very small amount, I can assure you. Almost every other account has been cancelled. You see, our Führer no longer trusts any general in Feldgrau.16 You and I, Seydlitz, are in our new commands because the Führer fired the whole lot of our predecessors because they could not transmute his will into miracles. Believe me, that can happen again. In any case, that small account of mine must be husbanded until the right time. I can draw on it only once, and then if I fail, I join the rest of the Feldgrau crowd.

  That means, gentlemen, that I have for a short time more operational discretion than any other German commander. That is until I stop pulling rabbits out of hats, turning water into wine, changing the laws of physics, human and mechanical endurance. And understanding women.

  Werewolf, Vinnitsa, 24 September 1942

  Manstein had been summoned back to the Werewolf by Hitler to report on his findings at Stalingrad. Stauffenberg joined the meeting. The field marshal was shocked by Hitler’s condition. He had not seen him since their meeting in July. ‘Well, well, Manstein. What have you found out? When will the city fall now?’

  ‘It’s not going to fall, mein Führer.’ Hitler jerked as it struck. His face started to redden as rage rippled through his body. ‘It’s not going to fall unless we act more boldly than we have.’ He laid it on thick. ‘We are beating our heads against a stone wall at Stalingrad. The Russians just keep feeding men into the city. It’s become another Verdun.’

  Hitler stood up and began to pace. He screamed, ‘I will never give up Stalingrad! Do you hear me, Manstein. Niemals! Never! It is a battle of prestige between Stalin and myself.’

  ‘Mein Führer, there is another way to win this battle.’ He then laid out his plan. Hitler focused intently on it. Stauffenberg made a few positive and insightful comments. As Manstein finished he said, ‘Mein Führer, I will present you Stalingrad as an early Christmas present, a very early present.’17

  That night Stauffenberg invited the field marshal to dine with him alone to discuss details of the plan. It became clear that he had something else to discuss.

  You have seen the Führer. I tell you frankly, he cannot continue to exercise the high command in his present physical condition. He is near a complete breakdown. Herr Feldmarschall, you are the one who is predestined, through talent and rank, to take the military command.

  Since that was Manstein’s goal, he could only have been flattered that the man who had been described by everyone as the most brilliant officer on the General Staff had come to the same conclusion.18 His brief time with Stauffenberg convinced him that the man more than lived up to his reputation; he had breathed new life into OKW and was bringing very able men with front experience onto the staff. Hitler clearly favoured him. His unheard-of promotion had surprised but not alarmed Manstein. War requires fresh, young talent.

  Manstein could take a hint. ‘I will be quite willing to discuss the matter of the high command with Hitler, but let me make this clear, Stauffenberg. I will not be a party directly or indirectly to any illegal undertak
ing.’

  Stauffenberg replied,

  While the operational solution you have discussed is brilliant, and no one but you could execute it, Germany is at the end of its resources. There are no reserves on the Eastern Front. Every army group is under pressure and is becoming weaker by the day. It is not every day that we will capture an Allied convoy to live off its booty. If no one takes the initiative, everything will continue on like before, which signifies that we will eventually slide into a major catastrophe.19

  ‘You could not be more mistaken,’ Manstein replied with some heat. ‘It is the course that you suggest that will lead to the collapse of the fronts and even civil war. A war is not truly lost as long as it is not considered as being lost; he stated firmly. ’The Reich has not yet met that crisis you speak of, but if and when it comes I am positive the Führer will recognize it and turn over the high command to someone qualified.’20

  You clearly have not been around him these last months, Herr Feldmarschall. I do not think he is capable of such a decision because it would be a repudiation of his leadership. Consider what title we call him by? The Leader! Leadership is the essence of his power. To turn over the high command to someone else would be like committing suicide.

  ‘Stauffenberg, you will not discuss this matter with me again.’21

  The younger man said only one word. ‘Tauroggen.’

  Manstein reddened in the face and struck the table with his fist. ‘Tauroggen has nothing to do with it.’ Tauroggen was where the Prussian General Yorck von Wartenburg had defied the orders of his king and taken his army over to the Russian emperor in the struggle against Napoleon. His was an honoured place in German military history where his disobedience was the supreme act of patriotism for he had disobeyed his king to serve the higher needs of the nation.

  Stauffenberg would not give up. ‘Tauroggen also entails an extreme loyalty.’

  The field marshal drank it in and suddenly became affable. ‘What good would a staff be if the staff officers could no longer speak with complete freedom?’ He then recited a famous quotation. ‘Criticism is the salt of obedience.’ They finished their meal in near silence.22

  Tiflis, 27 September 1942

  Panic ran through Tiflis like the plague. People remembered that Ordzhonikidze had once been named Vladikavkaz - Master of the Caucasus - by its Russian founders as they spread their rule over the mountains. Now a new master was spreading his power over the mountains, coming down the Georgian Military Highway that had not seen a foreign boot since it had been built a hundred years before. The Germans were coming. Every possible soldier in the city, to include its military school students, had been sent north to hold the descents from the passes through the mountains, but the 3rd and 5th Gebirgsjäger Divisions had swept around them and taken them from the rear one by one, making way for the panzers and motorized infantry.

  The news from Tiflis spread south and panicked the 46th Army which fell back precipitately and began to melt away as the natives of the region deserted. The Turkish 3rd Army and the Jägers overran the weak rearguards and pressed on, taking the city with little resistance just as the panzers arrived from the north. With Tiflis in German control, all the Soviet armies to the east, the remnants of the Northern Group and others, were trapped.

  At the same time, 17th Army, having consolidated its victories on the Black Sea coast, began the march to Tiflis with 5th SS Division Wiking and the Slovaks (LVII Panzer Corps) in the lead with orders to press on regardless of the slow pace of the following infantry corps. It was 214 miles from Sukhumi to Tiflis, and it would take the panzers less than a week to reach it. The Romanian divisions were left behind to garrison the coast and western Georgia.

  The Turkish 2nd Army found itself stopped cold in the Armenian mountains outside Yerevan. The Armenians fought with the same ferocity as the Soviet defenders of the grain elevator. Although Dzhulfa had fallen with a great deal of railway rolling stock and mountains of Allied aid, the Turks there could not use the railway to move through Armenia. Although the Azeri Turks welcomed them as liberators, that area was a poor one from which to base a drive to Baku, 248 miles away over poor roads and no railway connections. Yet, when they had taken Dzhulfa, they had set in train the decisions that would lead to the collapse of the Soviet grip on this vast, rich region.

  Kleist had his hands full in Tiflis trying to sort out control of the city. The Georgians were terrified of the Turks whose Ottoman masters had massacred the inhabitants in the late 18th century. Kleist put his foot down and ordered the Turks out of the city where they had already begun to loot and murder. Then there were so-called Knights of Queen Tamara, a proto-fascist group that had sprung up as the communists fled the city. Those Reds foolish enough to stay behind had met rough justice at the hands of the Knights. They were quickly enrolled as a German army auxiliary unit. With supervision they would be useful.

  Most of all, Kleist needed to give his men rest, and what better place than this charming green ancient city built on the hillsides above a rushing river. He allowed the churches to reopen and was blessed by the Georgian Orthodox bishop. Luckily for the Georgians and the security of 1st Panzer Army’s line of communications, the German political administration of conquered territories had not yet caught up with 1st Panzer Army.

  The Germans got on well with the Georgians whom they respected as tough fighters in the Red Army. Now, with Soviet power crushed, they threw flowers in the streets as the mountain troops and tanks had entered their city. After almost 150 years, they would finally be free of the Russians and especially the brutality of the communists. It was a case of being careful of what you wish for. The Germans were particularly taken with the blond Georgians from the province of Mingrelia, the descendants of the Colchians of the legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece. The blond South Ossetians also amazed them. Their province lay north of Tiflis along the Georgian Military Highway as it descended from the mountains. They claimed to be the descendants of the ancient Aryan Alans, the steppe nomads who had terrorized the late Roman Empire in the wake of the Huns. Then there was the intoxicating Georgian wine and good food. Tiflis seemed like a lush paradise after the scorched steppes they had crossed north of the mountains.

  For soldiers nothing this good can last as long as there is a higher headquarters. The calls from the Werewolf were insistent. ‘Move on, move on to Baku!’ The oilfields and the Caspian Sea beckoned, only 280 miles away.

  By the time 1st Panzer Army headed east, XL Panzer Corps had caught up with it, the men wistfully imagining what fun might there have been in Tiflis as they passed through. After them trudged the Jägers of XLIV Corps, now attached to Kleist, and the Turkish 3rd Army. It had been agreed that the Turks would garrison the regions of Azerbaijan along the path of the German advance and keep communications open. The Turkish commander was not happy that they would not be in for the kill at Baku. Blood on their bayonets would give Turkey a strong claim to at least part of the oilfields. As it was, they would have to be satisfied with the rest of Azerbaijan as their spoils. Brother Turks the Azeris might have been, but they were also despised Shiias. The world was so complicated.

  The Soviet collapse in the Caucasus was the trigger for the entry into Soviet Azerbaijan of the Indian XXI Corps (British 5th, Indian 5th and 8th Infantry Divisions). Stalin had been so frightened of the German advance that he desperately accepted the British proposal to reinforce his 53rd Army guarding Baku. Flying air support for the British and Indians were half a dozen American Air Corps squadrons. Flying ahead of the 1st Panzer Army to offer its own air support was, among others, the squadron of Hans Ulrich Rudel.

  Tankograd, 29 September 1942

  This vast tank factory just to the west of the Urals at Chelyabinsk had been nicknamed Tankograd (Tank City) by the tens of thousands of people who worked there pouring out the T-34 tank in increasing numbers. The factory complex, based on the already existing Chelyabinsk Tractor Factory, had sprung up almost overnight, assembled from dismantled factories
and equipment moved ahead of the oncoming Germans in the autumn of 1941. It had been the unsung valour of the Russian people under brutal conditions that had caused it to appear seemingly out of nowhere and become the largest industrial enterprise in the Soviet Union. In a space of thirty-three days from when the order was given, it had begun production of the T-34. In addition to the tanks themselves, the complex produced their aluminium engines, Katyusha rocket launchers, and a great deal of ammunition.

  The assembly lines continued to work at a high tempo, turning out hundreds of tanks a week as September came to a close. Yet the railroad spur that carried them away to the fighting forces had slowed its work. Now they loaded only half the tanks that came off the assembly lines. The rest began to fill up huge lots for the simple reason that they had no engines.

  The destruction of PQ-17 had sent thousands of tons of aluminium from North America to the bottom of the Norwegian Sea or to German smelters for use in their own war industries. These shipments were nearly half of the aluminium used by Soviet war industry, vital for tank and aircraft engines. And it was not just at Chelyabinsk that production had slowed. The other great tank plants at Nizhny Tagil, Nizhny Novgorod and Sverdlovsk were also hobbled.