Disaster at Stalingrad

CHAPTER 14 ‘Manstein is Coming!’

The area around Vatutin’s command post in the town was littered with shattered tanks, bodies, and the debris from the large number of German supply and maintenance units that 5th Tank Army had overrun. Hundreds of German prisoners were being escorted back across the bridge to the west bank of the Don. To the east was the smoke and noise of battle. As long as he held the Germans close they could not disengage and escape. Stalin had called him personally to congratulate him on the success of Southwest Front and to explain that it was still possible to trap the enemy between his own 1st Tank Corps at Lyapichev and Rokossovsky’s 16th Tank Corps.

Chuikov was less sanguine, remembering an old Russian military proverb, ‘It was all smooth on the map, but they forgot the ravines.’ He had an army to command — officially — but he could scrape barely a division’s worth with enough ammunition and equipment to accomplish his task. These were the survivors of dozens of divisions and brigades smashed, depleted, replaced, the lucky survivors of the months of the Rattenkrieg. Now they streamed out of the ruins of the outer suburbs of Stalingrad, denizens of cellars, broken buildings, all the dark and claustrophobic shelters of city fighting and into the open, snow-covered country. Chuikov himself did not realize what effect such a sudden change would have until it struck him himself. There was an unnerving feeling of vulnerability in the empty expanse of the fields, with barely a bit of stubble or steppe grass showing out of the thin layer of snow.

It was not quite empty. Hoth had placed his 29th Motorized Division to hold the wide-open right flank of the two German armies. Its victory over the 13th Tank Corps two days before had proved the wisdom of that move. Now it hovered over a broad stretch of open country as befitting its epithet, the Falcon Division. It did not take long for its reconnaissance elements to discover Chuikov’s infantry trudging over the snow to the southwest. They would have been safer had they clung to their broken city. Leyser had taken the risk of pulling his division up to within 10 miles of Lyapichev in case 1st Tank Corps broke through. It would also allow him to counter any threat to 4th Panzer Army’s flank.

Chuikov was just such a threat. Ever since his men had left the psychological protection of the last of the suburbs, he had wondered when the Germans would discover they were there. He had fought them too long to believe they would leave such a flank wide open. His question was answered all too soon as Leyser’s artillery laced down his column, spewing men in every direction. Before they could recover from the shock, the panzers were cutting through them, followed by the German infantry firing from their halftracks. An hour later a German bayonet prodded Chuikov’s chest. He groaned. ‘Hey, Herr Leutnant, this one’s alive, and he’s a general!’¹

Yeremenko did not have time to worry about the defeat of 2nd Guards Army. The Germans were outside his own bunker. Smoke from the burning headquarters was drifting down into the small space, choking everyone. He spun the cylinder of his revolver. Wounded three times in the war so far, he concluded that he had already used up all his luck and more. He would not survive this defeat one way or another. Stalin would have less mercy than the Germans. No surrender.

The German 11th Army’s infantry corps had broken through between the Sarpinsky Lakes the day before as its panzer corps had finished off the last of his tank brigades. Stalingrad Front had simply disintegrated. The Germans were rounding up 80,000 prisoners as their infantry columns were marching north through the night towards the city. At last Manstein ordered the panzer corps west. He now had his operational reserve. And not a moment too soon.

At first light Butkov’s 1st Tank Corps burst out of its concentration at Lyapichev and headed east. Behind it rifle divisions widened the breakthrough. The tanks swept over the thin German antitank defences of what was left of V Corps. Twenty-five miles in the other direction Rokossovky’s 16th Tank Corps had skirted through the outer Stalingrad suburbs and was heading southwest. Each tank corps had only slightly more than 12 miles to go to trap both German armies to the north. All that stood between their 300 tanks and the objective was 29th Motorized Division.

Zhukov drew all the resources of the three northern fronts together to ensure that nothing would stand in the way of the union of the two tank corps. Wave after wave of Sturmoviks, the premier ground-attack aircraft of the Red Air Force, were concentrated from the 16th and 17th Air Armies. Low on fuel, outnumbered eight to one, and tormented from the sky by swarms of Red Falcons,² the Falcon Division was broken and brushed aside as the two tank corps closed the distance between them. At 10.37, their lead elements met a few miles outside the little town of Verkhne-Tsaritsynski, the site of the mauling of the 13th Tank Corps three days before. The area was littered with wrecked Soviet tanks. That did not lessen the joy of the men in both corps. The Germans were surrounded! The commanders met and hugged, tears streaming down their faces as all along the front where the corps met, men climbed down from their tanks to embrace and celebrate. Vodka appeared everywhere. The closing of the ring happened so quickly that the propaganda units were not able to film it properly. So next day it was carefully restaged for them.

Behind the celebrations the rifle divisions of Rokossovky’s 66th Army were force-marching south to strengthen the ring around the Germans. Vatutin’s 8th Cavalry Corps had crossed the Don 20 miles south of Lyapichev and its units were fanning out in the German rear. Stalin was visibly relieved when the news arrived that the ring had been closed. That night every Soviet radio station interrupted its programming to announce to the Soviet peoples that their glorious sons in the Red Army had closed a death trap on the enemy who had strained and struggled for months to take Stalin’s city on the Volga. Stalin was only momentarily relieved. After all, he could not conjure up the fuel that was running out for his tanks. Current operations, especially around Stalingrad, had badly depleted fuel stocks. The consequences of the loss of 90 per cent of the Soviet oilfields at Maikop, Grozny and Baku were finally being felt on the battlefield. Like a knife twisting in the Soviet belly, the refineries at Maikop were already producing refined fuels for the Germans. Fuel trains were already reaching Kotelnikovo and their loads were then immediately being hurried north by truck.³

For Seydlitz the crisis of the battle was at hand. His army and Hoth’s were now fully encircled. Manstein had just appointed him to command both armies in the pocket.⁴ As well as enemies on the ground, the Red Air Force was savaging the overcrowded pocket, now called the Kalach Kessel. To the west Vatutin had pushed him away from the Don. To the north and east Rokossovsky’s infantry were pressing. To the south the enemy’s two tank corps had barred the way for relief. And those were only the problems caused directly by the enemy. His men had had no shelter since they had abandoned Stalingrad; fuel, food and ammunition were fast running out. The two panzer corps were down to fewer than fifty tanks each with almost no fuel to run them. The wounded were dying of exposure, and there was little the doctors could do without supplies and field hospitals.

From Werewolf came the stirring command:

‘How reassuring,’ thought Seydlitz. ‘If adamantine resolve were all it took, then Hitler would already be ruling the world.’ As it was, he would put his faith in Manstein. The word quickly spread through the trapped armies. ‘Manstein is coming!’ It worked like a jolt of adrenalin to reanimate the sagging morale of the troops.

The Soviets were rushing troops into the ring around the two trapped armies. Manstein would have to come soon. Seydlitz would not have enough strength to attempt to break out while Manstein was breaking in. He concentrated all his remaining panzer and motorized forces into a single battle group, Kampfgruppe Hoth, putting that general in charge of the break-out. With them were his veterans of the Hoch- und Deutschmeister. He mused that having broken open the Demyansk Pocket earlier that year, they would see the irony of breaking out of another pocket now. More than that, despite what they had gone through, they were still tough veterans who got things done.

Now Hitler actually came to his aid. Goring, elated with his success at resupplying 1st Panzer Army by air, pledged to resupply the armies in the Kalach Pocket to which Hitler assented. Unfortunately, there was no airfield left in the pocket. Instead a steady stream of Ju 52s flew over the pocket dropping supplies by parachute. The Red Falcons had a field day, falling on them as if they were flocks of pigeons. To the horror of the Germans on the ground, transport after transport blew up in the air or spiralled down in flames to crash among them. Yet amid the carnage raining down on them, thousands of parachutes also landed with desperately needed food, ammunition and medical supplies. The men who rushed to retrieve one parachute were taken aback, though, to discover that the entire canister was full of condoms. Another group found a canister packed with Iron Crosses.

Richthofen’s fighters flew escort but found they had their hands full as the Red Air Force put everything it had into the air battle to keep the pocket from being resupplied. In truth, Luftflotte 4, despite its high kill-ratio, was being flown into the ground. Its losses were mounting with few replacements in aircraft or pilots. The Red Air Force was also paying far too much attention to its airfields. Richthofen urged Manstein, ‘There are too many Russians, and they keep getting better. Hurry, or I won’t be able to support you.’

The remnants of 2nd Guards Army retreating into the town were given no rest and less hope by Kleist’s pursuing panzers. A German reconnaissance battalion cut Stalin’s secret railway a dozen miles to the north. Already artillery fire was falling amid the supply dumps and rail sidings. Fire and smoke seemed everywhere, as did large numbers of terror-stricken rear-echelon troops and deserters.

There was even more reason to panic had they known that SS Wiking had swung south to the Volga and raced up the river road to play havoc among the supply units and the masses of equipment, food, and ammunition that had built up as the floating river ice had cut off almost all traffic to the west. On the east bank were numerous boats and barges immobilized by the ice. Many of the Scandinavians in the Nordland Regiment had been fishermen and small-boat operators. Ice was nothing new to them, and a few managed to dodge the floes and get to the other side. The first soldier of the Wehrmacht to plant his boots on the landing zone in the city was a Norwegian. He looked around and walked up the beach past wrecked boats and equipment of every type. A few more followed him, spread out in a skirmish line. He was met by a man with a white flag and a red cross on his armband. Stalingrad had fallen to a squad.

Zaitsev was resting on a pallet in a basement hospital when the word spread that the Germans were back in the city. At first there was stunned silence, then men began to weep. All for nothing! Rumours are often just rumours, he thought. Then a silhouette filled the doorway, that same silhouette he had had scores of times in his sights. Instinctively, he grabbed his sniper’s rifle from where it was propped up against the wall. One shot, and the German, or more accurately a Swede, fell forward onto the floor. As fast as a hunted hare, Zaitsev slipped out the door and up the basement steps. In moments he was lost to sight among the ruins.

Raus could see the village of Verkhne-Tsaritsynski a few miles to the north. Here and there knocked-out tanks were the only bumps on the otherwise flat expanse of farmland beyond which were over 200,000 trapped German soldiers. To the west of the town, Hörnlein was also conducting his own personal reconnaissance. The corps’ northward march had been rapid; they had arrived yesterday, but Manstein was determined not to dissipate their combat power with a hasty attack.

Instead ammunition, fuel and food had been funnelling into their assembly areas. The crews worked quickly to replenish their ammunition, top off their fuel and get as many hot meals as they could. Then, most importantly, they slept. Just as they were about to curl up in whatever shelter they could find, men began running from vehicle to vehicle with the news that Stalingrad had fallen to 1st Panzer Army. Of course, the announcement did not say that only a few hundred men had been able to cross the river. There were a few cheers for the victory that had been hanging in the balance for so long, but sleep was more alluring to bone-tired men than victory’s sweet song.

As they slept, the two infantry corps of 11th Army marched to take up the right flank of the panzer corps. The infantry corps on the right would enter the city from the south while that on the left would prevent any Soviet counterthrust from striking the flank of the relief force.

The Soviets picked up the news of the fall of the city from the German intercepts. Stalin was enraged. No one mentioned that he had personally directed that Chuikov’s army join the encirclement of the Germans. Now he ordered that Rokossovsky’s 66th Army be thrown into the city instead of strengthening the encircling ring. Zhukov called from the front to argue against it. ‘Comrade Stalin, the 66th Army is vital to this operation. We can retake the city once we have destroyed the trapped enemy.’

But Stalin was having none of it. The impossible had happened. The city that bore his name had fallen after he had made its successful defence the pivot of the war for the Soviet peoples. ‘You are thinking only in military terms, but I must balance that with the political cost. How will the morale of your armies be affected if they find out the city had fallen?’

Zhukov replied, ‘They will simply get on with it.’

Stalin was getting angry. ‘The will to fight will be gone. No, you must retake the city immediately, and no one will be the wiser. We can pass it off that the enemy just infiltrated a few saboteurs.’

One last time Zhukov tried to argue, but Stalin cut him off. ‘Just do it.’

As he hung up the phone, he was thinking ahead. The battle could go either way. Should Zhukov win and destroy the trapped Germans, then it would be a disaster for Hitler. Would he sue for peace? Stalin thought, ‘I certainly wouldn’t. There is still a lot of war in the Germans even if they lose this battle.’

But if the battle went the other way, the game was up for the Soviet Union. Lenin’s legacy would be in danger. His spies in OKW had told him that Hitler had talked of a negotiated peace in the spring. How attractive would that be if he were victorious? Stalin put himself in Hitler’s place and knew that such a peace would be a punitive one. Yet what other choice was there? With the loss of the oilfields and Allied aid, there was not a lot of war left in the Russians. He expected that the Soviet Union’s name would become inaccurate as such a peace was likely to shear it of almost all its non-Russian territories. It would be reduced to a Russian core with its centre of gravity moving east. The communist state could survive in this core. The Russians had proved to him that they were a state-minded people, willing to defend Lenin’s legacy.

All well and good, in theory, he thought, but what is to happen to Stalin? He had left a blood-stained path to power. How the knives would sharpen. It would require the iron control of the NKVD if he were to survive. He was pleased in his appointment of Abakumov to replace Beria. The man was pitiless and relentless in his sniffing out of disloyalty, even before the thought had occurred.

Abakumov was indeed pitiless and relentless, but even he could smell a disaster in the wind. The existential question then became, ‘How will Abakumov fare?’ Already members of the Politburo were putting out certain feelers and if Stalin knew about them… Loyalty had its limits. Kill for Stalin? Of course. Die for Stalin? Now that was a different matter.⁵

‘Mein treuer Reinhard,’ Hitler exclaimed, as Heydrich entered and gave him the stiff-armed salute, the Hitler Gruss. He came over and took Heydrich’s hands in his own he was so delighted to see him. ‘I am surrounded by generals with their red-striped trousers. They always tell me what cannot be done. With you I know I have a man who just does the impossible. The only one here like you is this young Stauffenberg. You must meet him.’

‘We have already met, mein Führer. He greeted me personally at the entrance to your compound.’ Hitler was pleased. He had developed the utmost confidence in his new OKW Deputy Chief of Operations. Stauffenberg was not so pleased. He had already known enough of Heydrich to despise him before they had even met. But after shaking his damp, soft hand, he had viscerally recoiled from the man, though he had enough self-control not to show it.

That reaction only added urgency to his plan to pry military intelligence out of Heydrich’s grasp. As they walked the long path through the pinewoods to Hitler’s bunker, Stauffenberg commented that the SS Panzer Corps being created in France was a juicy plum for any able man willing to throw his fate onto the scales of the battlefield. ‘You would understand, I am sure. The urge to test oneself in battle is irresistible, as you showed when you took part in the air battles against the English.’

Heydrich smiled a bit. It had been a delicious experience, and he chafed to do more than cow Czechs and kill Jews. Of course, getting control of all intelligence functions of the Reich was one thing, but his future would require more combat distinction than a few air brawls with the British.

Stauffenberg went on:

He was not foolish enough actually to suggest to Hitler that he appoint Heydrich to command the SS Panzer Corps. He knew that Hitler would not take it well for an Army officer, even one as favoured as he was, to make any suggestions about command appointments within the SS. It was Hitler’s private army aglow with a fire for National Socialism that he felt the Army did not show enough. He was confident that Heydrich would bring up the matter but only in private with Hitler.

And he was right. Hitler made the announcement at the next OKW staff meeting. ‘I have decided to entrust command of the new SS panzer corps to my faithful Heydrich. Until the corps is deployed, he will retain control of all intelligence functions already under his purview.’

Stauffenberg was aghast. He had overplayed his hand badly. He had wanted to reassert Wehrmacht control of the Abwehr and had been willing to buy it with a potentially dangerous assignment. Stauffenberg had weighed the importance of the Abwehr against putting a very sharp sword in Heydrich’s hand. The plotters needed the Abwehr to open channels for a negotiated peace after Hitler’s removal. Now Heydrich had the sword and the Abwehr.

At least he would be in France and not on the Eastern Front when it came time to remove Hitler. Hopefully Canaris could continue to deceive Heydrich as to his feelers to the Amis. Suddenly things had become a lot more dicey.⁶

Admiral Canaris had just returned from a clandestine meeting in Switzerland with a representative of the British MI6. The man had borne Churchill’s answer to the admiral’s question of what terms Germany could expect to end the war. ‘His Majesty’s Government will make no peace with Hitler or his regime.’ What it left unsaid was even more important than what it did say. Churchill was implying that peace was possible if Hitler were removed and the Nazis suppressed.

He was interrupted by the arrival of a courier from Stauffenberg, a reliable young officer. The dispatch he delivered informed him of Hitler’s decision to subordinate the Abwehr to the Sicherheitsdienst and Heydrich as well as the latter’s appointment to command the SS Panzer Corps organizing around Toulon in southern France. It was clear that if Hitler and his entourage were eliminated it would leave enormous power in his former protégé’s hands. If anyone could keep the Nazis in power after Hitler, it was Heydrich.

Canaris went over to the window to watch a cold rain beat down. Something would have to be done to make sure Heydrich did not step into Hitler’s shoes. He called for his aide. ‘Order Major von Fölkersam to report to me immediately.’

Before dawn Crrossdeutschland and 6th Panzer Division had assembled without incident. Raus observed that,

As the artillery kept up its rapid fire, the tank engines turned over. In a deep wedge formation Raus sent over a hundred tanks through the snowy steppe. The blow was so powerful that the Russians of the 343rd Rifle Division were stunned:

Raus was amazed that the Soviet 16th Tank Corps had not sought to counter his attack on the rifle division in the Soviet first-line defence. He had no idea that Stalin’s order to redirect that division as part of the 66th Army to retake Stalingrad had sown confusion in the enemy command. The 66th Army had just begun moving its rifle divisions into the belt of encirclement to give defence in depth against any German attack so that the tank corps could mass to counterattack. The 343rd Rifle Division had just arrived when it received the order to move back to retake Stalingrad. It was preparing to move when Raus fell upon it.

As night fell, Raus saw to the resupply and refuelling of his division. LX Panzer Corps kept him informed of Grossdeutschland’s similar success. It too had gutted an enemy rifle division and not suffered any tank counterattacks. That luck could not last. Tomorrow the Soviet tank corps could be expected to come out fighting.⁹

His right flank would be secured by the 11th Army’s XXX Corps’ three divisions marching west after the defeat of Southwest Front. On its right LIV Corps’s four divisions would drive up through Stalingrad, make contact with the SS Wiking elements in the city, and then strike west against Vatutin’s armies.

That night, as the German panzer divisions rested, Zhukov was again on the phone to Stalin, begging him to rescind the order to redirect 66th Army east to drive the Germans out of Stalingrad. Reconnaissance stated that, because crossing the Volga in the face of so much floating ice was so dangerous, only a battalion or so of Germans had been able to cross, out of the entire 1st Panzer Army waiting on the east bank after its victory at Leninsk.¹⁰

This time Stalin relented. The loss of two rifle divisions to Raus and Hörnlein’s panzers underlined how serious their threat was. But Stalin sought to have it both ways. Two of 66th Army’s four rifle divisions could reinforce the two tank corps, but the other two would have to retake Stalingrad. The grand old man of the Prussian Army, the late Field Marshal Helmut von Moltke had had a phrase for this back and forthing: ‘Order, counterorder, disorder.’¹¹

After night had fallen Raus’s and Hörnlein’s divisions stopped only long enough to resupply their ammunition and top off their fuel. After midnight they moved out. ‘Only the pale light of the stars made it possible to identify, at very close range, the dim outlines of the tanks and their dark trail in the thin layer of snow.’ Raus knew that he was going to engage the 16th Tank Corps some time that day. It would be far better if he could arrange the terms rather than let the enemy commander have a say. The way to do that was to take something that would attract the enemy to him like iron filings to a magnet. The village of Verkhne-Tsaritsynski answered perfectly. Roads led out of it in all four directions, and although the Soviets were smart enough not to garrison it and make it a target, in German hands it would be like a bone in the throat.

The outlines of the village were just becoming visible as the morning mist, which had cloaked the German advance, lifted. A reconnaissance detachment found it empty, and the reinforced 11th Panzer Regiment and attached units forming a Kampfgruppe rolled forward, commanded by the redoubtable Colonel Walther von Hünersdorff, one of the most talented and aggressive officers of the panzer corps. Then suddenly the scouts at another point reported, ‘There is a heavy concentration of hostile tanks in a broad depression south of here. More tanks are following.’ The Soviet tanks started to emerge from the depression but were immediately knocked out by panzers that had lined some low hills surrounding it. The Soviet tanks withdrew. Then the panzers sprang forward to line the depression and fire down into the enemy tank concentration. The Soviets assumed an all-around defence and fired back. Within half an hour it was over and nothing remained of the Soviet brigade but a tank graveyard for seventy burning vehicles.

As the battle in the depression raged, another Soviet tank brigade coming from the north attempted to come to the rescue just as the tail of 11th Panzer Regiment entered the village. The attached panzergrenadiers, antitank units, and engineers were able to take over the defence of the village, leaving the panzers for mobile defence. A third enemy tank brigade was seen coming from the west to join the battle. Both the German and Russian commanders were broadcasting in the clear because of the need for quick action. But it was the Germans who were faster off the mark and more tactically nimble. The German radio intercept reported to Hünersdorff the Russian message, ‘Motorized brigade on the way; hold out, hold out!’ He attacked the brigade coming from the east and sought to turn its flanks. The Russian commander kept lengthening his own front, but kept suffering heavy losses from the accurate German crossfire. Finally, he withdrew down a sunken road, sacrificing his rearguard and leaving forty tanks on the field.

Part of what the Germans were intercepting were the frantic conversations between the commanders of the two tank corps. Major General Maslov, commanding 16th Tank Corps, was begging Butkov for help. Butkov whose 1st Tank Corps was now sparring with Grossdeutschland, was reluctant. Maslov pleaded, ‘I’ve lost two tank brigades already. The enemy will break through if I don’t get any reinforcements.’ Maslov was running up against a divided command. He reported to Rokossovsky while Butkov reported to Vatutin. By the time that got sorted out, 6th Panzer was burning out the last elements of Maslov’s corps. Into that battle Butkov now sent two of his four brigades.¹²

The Soviets were committing numerically superior forces to the battle but piecemeal. Using his panzergrenadiers, engineers and antitank units to hold the village, the German colonel manoeuvred his tanks to strike one enemy brigade after another with superior numbers. From radio intercepts and air reconnaissance he knew the tank brigade from the west would take an hour to reach the field while the mechanized brigade was approaching the village. He directed the main body of his panzers through a depression that brought them onto the Russian rear. The tank battalion of the brigade was quickly shot up, causing the motorized battalions to veer off and escape to the northwest. The last Soviet brigade, arriving after the defeat of the mechanized brigade, ran straight into the reconcentrated panzers. A bitter duel took place in which the Russian tanks, which had advanced without cover, suffered brutal losses.

Still another mechanized brigade was attacking, but Hünersdorff struck it in the flank so quickly it could not change front. The tank battalion of thirty tanks was destroyed, and the motorized infantry fled. From the west, the tank brigade finally arrived and with motorized infantry broke into the village, overrunning a 105mm gun battery and a number of antitank guns. German engineers with antitank mines rushed the T-34s and took them out one at a time.

Now Hünersdorff played his trump. He threw in his panzer reserve to counterattack the enemy’s flank, which quickly folded. Then those panzers that had been in the defence also went over into the attack, closing to very short range. The Soviets fought hard but all of a sudden, like a receding tide, they flooded back, leaving a mass of wrecked and burning tanks in their wake. The 16th Tank Brigade had been burned out. Maslov did not live to report his failure, but Butkov’s brigades were still on the way, and Rokossovsky had thrown in the 66th Army’s separate tank brigade as well.¹³

Hünersdorff’s victory had come at the cost of leaving his panzergrenadiers and others to hold off more attacks on the village by tanks and motorized infantry. He was shocked to get a message from an officer in the village asking permission to abandon it. The reply was an emphatic no, but the situation had reached a crisis point. The troops in the village were almost out of ammunition. For hours as Hünersdorff’s panzers had parried one tank attack after another, the Soviets had been attacking the village. German antitank gunners and engineers with shaped charges had knocked out tank after tank that had barged into the village. Again and again, the Germans had thrown back each infantry assault, but now they were at the end of their resources, and there seemed no end of Russians.

The Kampfgruppe commander looked at his exhausted Panzertruppen. The men had been in constant and desperate action for many hours. He leaned out of his tank turret and screamed in rage at the men, ‘You want to be my regiment? Is this what you call an attack? I am ashamed of this day!’

That provoked just the response he had intended. The panzer crews were so infuriated at the colonel’s insult that it was like a shot of adrenalin for each man. He ordered that they break into the village, ‘at maximum speed whatever the losses’. They attacked with such fury, spraying their machine-gun fire in every direction, that the Russians were unnerved and fled across the steppe.¹⁴

Even now the Germans could not rest. Butkov’s and Rokossovky’s brigades were converging on them. Out of ammunition and with very many wounded loaded onto the tanks, Hünersdorff withdrew his Kampfgruppe. The Russians converged on the village in triumph, their tanks wending their way through scores of other burning Soviet tanks and over the bodies of their own motorized infantry. It was a Pyrrhic victory. They held a meaningless village, but it had cost them most of a tank corps. The Germans had thirty tanks knocked out but were able to recover almost every one before they withdrew. Panzergruppe Hünersdorff and the rest of 6th Panzer had lived to fight another day. That was the essence of Manstein’s elastic concept of battle on a tactical level. Holding terrain is not important; killing the enemy in large numbers is. Trading one to achieve the other was the essence of the art of war. As such it earned the ultimate accolade of the army group commander for 6th Panzer.

To the west Hörnlein was making easier progress against 1st Tank Corps, weakened as it was by sending two of its four brigades to help Maslov. Infantry were streaming in from Lyapichev; Butkov fed them into the fight, holding his own tanks back for counterattack. To his distress, Grossdeutschland was crushing them in its advance. Butkov commented bitterly to his deputy, ‘the Germans are spitting out our infantry like sunflower seed shells’, referring to the way Russians would eat a mouthful of seeds and be able to spit out a stream of shells.

On the ground it was less colourful and more brutal. German Private Alfred Novotny found himself in his baptism of combat, a recent replacement. He watched in stunned amazement as the artillery roared its preparation for the assault. Stukas followed to dive into the attack. Panzers were arriving adding to ‘the smoke, the noise, and the confusion’. He could think only of school and old friends as fear seeped through him.

Then the signal for the attack was given:

Novotny felt something shift under him. It was not the dirt but the face of a young, dead Russian soldier:

Just as Butkov was preparing his counterattack against Hörnlein’s penetration, Hoth unleashed the last of his panzers to break out of the encirclement. General der Panzertruppen Werner Kempf, commander of XLVIII Panzer Corps, was in overall command of the breakout effort. His force was such an amalgam of survivors that it was called Kampfgruppe Kempf rather than by any unit name. It included barely fifty operational tanks, a regiment’s worth of panzergrenadiers (out of the six that had belonged to the XIV and XLVIII Panzer Corps), engineers, flak and antitank elements. Attached also was the Hoch-und Deutschmeister, in the strength of a weak regiment, all that was left of the 44th Infantry Division. Every gun within range fired as part of an intense barrage, most using up what little ammunition they had left.

The artillery fell on the 14th Guards Rifle Division defending the inner side of the encirclement. The division had only arrived the day before in a special convoy of American trucks stripped from the supply services to exploit 1st Tank Army’s crossing of the Don and seizure of Lyapichev. The Soviet Guards were frantically trying to turn every ripple or depression in the ground into a defence position when the artillery struck them. Bodies flew into the air or were torn apart like rag dolls, antitank guns were broken and twisted, and the Russian batteries were decimated. Yet the surviving Soviets hung on and waited for the Germans.

As the German panzers had ground through the outer encirclement belt, frantic calls up the chain of command had led to Vatutin going over into an all-out attack to break into the pocket before the Germans could break out. Such an attack would prevent the encircled Germans from concentrating enough force to break out. He had not reckoned enough on Seydlitz’s single-minded determination not to remain passive about his own fate.

Nevertheless, Vatutin’s attacks were wearing down 6th Army’s exhausted divisions. With its artillery concentrated on supporting the break-out, 6th Army had little with which to oppose 21st and 5th Tank Armies’ attacks. Only the Luftwaffe could fill the gap, but every aircraft was committed to supporting the breakthrough. At that moment when Vatutin’s armies were cracking open the pocket in the north, Kampfgruppe Kempf flung itself south at the 14th Guards.

The soldiers of the 14th Guards were veterans, and their political officers had been hammering home that they were the only thing standing between the German 6th Army and escape. Now was the time to hold firm and extract a bloody vengeance for the sufferings of the Motherland. Their comrades dead about them, half their antitank guns destroyed, and their artillery shattered, they hung on. Rolling towards them were men motivated by a similar determination, but this one was fuelled by desperation. Every weapon the Soviets had left opened up as the panzers flew at them in a wedge formation. To their right came the Hoch- und Deutschmeister, men even more desperate and determined than the panzer crews. They had been through one harrowing retreat and were fed up with being hounded by the Russians. This time Ivan was on the receiving end.

The East Saxons of the 24th Infantry Division were simply not prepared for what they encountered as they entered Stalingrad from the south. They and the other divisions of 11th Army’s LIV Corps thought they knew what the siege and destruction of a fortress city looked like. The men of the 24th Division were, after all, veterans of the epic siege of Sevastopol. Had they not finally broken the formidable Fort Stalin?

Sevastopol had fallen in the bright July sunshine of the Crimea framed by the blue water of the Black Sea. Stalingrad was not like that at all. Winter had left the blackened ruins sprinkled with filthy snow under dull, leaden skies. The destruction was far more thorough, and everywhere among the broken brick and concrete were the bodies, frozen excrement, and the detritus of countless used-up divisions. The few people they saw were civilians scavenging through the ruins. They fled as soon as they saw Germans. The East Saxon regiments filed up in awe past the grain elevator, all scorched and with huge, jagged holes.

Eventually, they met a patrol in SS uniform whose men spoke with a thick Danish accent and claimed to be from SS Wiking. They guided them to an outpost of that division. The commander of the lead regiment was put in touch with the senior SS officer, who excitedly told him that air reconnaissance just reported large numbers of Soviet troops marching back up the west end of the pocket towards the city. On his own authority the commander changed the direction of march to the northwest. His decision was immediately confirmed by his division, corps and army commanders. The rest of the corps was turned in that direction as well.

They were in a race to intercept the enemy’s 64th and 299th Rifle Divisions of 66th Army, directed by Stalin himself to retake the city from the German contingent that had occupied it. Stalin would have been far less satisfied with this action had he known that the army commander had selected the 64th Rifle Division for the mission. Given Stalin’s obsession with treason, the knowledge that this division was being trusted to retake the city that bore his name would have enraged him. As well it should: the men of the 64th were still disaffected from their suppressed mutiny in August and now bore a deep and abiding hatred for the ‘justice’ meted out to so many comrades.

Hitler’s face turned red. His eyes glowed with rage. His staff knew the signs of an impending tirade. In his hand was the message from Manstein that finally had answered his constant stream of precise orders, every one of which had been disobeyed.

Stauffenberg was ready. An aide hustled in a young soldier dressed in the black uniform of the Panzertruppen, his arm in a sling. At his throat hung a Knight’s Cross. ‘Mein Führer, allow me to introduce a front soldier straight from the Kalach pocket, Hauptmann Bruno Detweiler. He has a message for you from the men of the 6th Army.’

If there was anything that tempered Hitler’s conduct it was a front soldier — he imagined he had a bond with the combat veterans dating to his own service in the trenches of the First War. Here was one who had been wounded in battle and wore the Knight’s Cross, proof of his valour. The fires in Hitler’s eyes banked, and he suddenly looked kindly.

The young man was plainly awestruck. He pulled himself together, saluted, and began his report. He described the conditions of the fighting, the state of the men and their morale. Then he said,

Hitler was greatly affected by the speech. He took the Hauptmann’s hand in both of his and warmly shook it. When the man had departed, he grumbled to Stauffenberg, ‘I will give Manstein enough rope to hang himself.’¹⁸

Manstein had no intention of measuring himself for a noose. He was preparing one for Zhukov. He had also had one in mind for the GröFaZ himself with the help of the other Gerichten. But the battle was reaching that point when all the previous actions, both German and Russian, suddenly presented opportunities. Most of those opportunities were now tumbling into the hands of the Germans.

The 11th Army was wheeling in on the Soviet flank and rear as well as breaking into the Kalach Pocket. It was for this reason that he had fought Hitler tooth and nail to retain it as a powerful operational reserve. Now his Sevastopol veterans were flooding through the ruins of Stalingrad. The reports kept streaming in:

Manstein did not know that the men of 6th Panzer as they broke into the pocket were shouting their division motto to the benumbed survivors of Seydlitz’s army, ‘Raus zieht heraus!’

That tank battle was the epic clash between the panzers of Raus, Hörnlein and Kempf and those of Vatutin’s 26th Tank Corps and 8th Cavalry Corps. Overhead the air forces filled the sky and rained down disintegrating or flaming aircraft as the struggle in the air was as intense as that on the ground. Zhukov took personal command of this battle and committed the Southwest Front reserve, 1st Mechanized Corps. Even that was not enough.

The German panzer commanders had thrust into the Soviet positions and then gone over to the defence. The enemy threw in wave after wave of tanks backed by entire rifle divisions. Raus never forgot the scene:

Here the superior gunnery skills and optics as well as the powered turrets made the German T-34s such killing machines that they never were in Soviet hands. Artillery from 6th Army’s replenished guns joined the fight as well while the war lover Rudel showed up with his squadron to join the battle as did other squadrons of Stukas and Ju 88s.

Sergeant Alexei Petrov was overwhelmed by the massive shelling and air attack:

It was the upper torso of a body of a Red Army man. His hips and legs had been severed by a shell burst and lay beside him:

Into this chaos 6th Panzer lurched forward with 150 tanks, cutting through the Russian masses. Raus’s assault-gun battalion attacked on a parallel axis cutting off large numbers of the enemy between them:

As the panzers sliced through the collapsing Soviet forces, 11th Army was completing its wheel northwestward to cut the supply lines of Don Front and pushing its 65th and 24th Armies back towards the Don, joining the broken 5th Tank Army and 21st Army of Southwest Front.²²

By the next morning there was a massive traffic jam as the Soviet armies were feeding into the single bridge over the Don at Kalach, desperate to escape the Germans. German artillery and the Luftwaffe followed the horde, killing large numbers and sowing more panic. They were packed so tight that every shell and bomb found a target. NKVD troops trying to control the roads to the bridge were shot down as men rushed to cross. All this time the bridge received the unrelenting attention of the Luftwaffe’s dive-bomber squadrons. Between their attacks, the Me 109s would make strafing runs, their bullets stitching a bloody trail through the crowds packing the bridge, exploding supply trucks, until no one could get through. But the mobs heaved and pushed their way over the dead, pushing burning vehicles over the side to crash through the ice in the Don with a loud crack and hiss as they sank. The end to escape came when finally a well-aimed bomb dropped a span. Still the crowds pushed forward spilling the men in front over the broken edge of the bridge to splatter on the ice below.

Along the banks thousands of men attempted to cross the ice. Hundreds fell through, but many more found ways across where the ice had frozen thickly enough to carry their weight. To the north more thousands followed the bank itself to find the bridge at Akimovka, where the German XI Corps had streamed across in the other direction in the same sort of panic flight.

But for the four armies packed into the approaches to Kalach, there was no escape. Over the next few days, the Germans would count over 200,000 prisoners.

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.