Enemy at the Gates

continue its drive for a very limited period. He referred specifically to apparent bad news from the Italian front, and warned that Hoth’s divisions might have to be shifted away from the drive to the Kessel in order to save that puppet army. Eismann also went on to say that even under optimum conditions, it was doubtful whether Hoth’s tanks could advance more than twenty miles beyond the Mishkova River, to Businovka, where Paulus had hoped to make the linkup. He asked Paulus to extend his own drive another twenty-five kilometers south.

Paulus and Schmidt reaffirmed their intention to break out as soon as possible. But they argued that Operation Winter Storm, the linkup, was not feasible until Sixth Army received enough fuel for its tanks. There was only enough gas for a sortie of twenty kilometers, not nearly enough to reach the 6th Panzer Division at the Mishkova. Under these conditions, it was impossible to extend the drive. Both generals strongly urged that Thunderclap, the plan calling for the withdrawal of the entire Sixth Army from the Volga, had to be initiated at the same moment as Winter Storm. Then, the full weight of Sixth Army’s waning power could be focused at one point. It was the sole hope for the breakout’s success.

Eismann pressed them about accepting the risks of making the linkup, even on unfavorable terms. But Paulus and Schmidt steadfastly refused to begin Operation Winter Storm without more supplies. Schmidt was particularly stubborn on this point. He called the airlift the chief stumbling block to success. Half in jest, he told Eismann, “The army would hold its positions until Easter if it were supplied better.”

With the situation still unresolved, the meeting adjourned. The discouraged Paulus went to his quarters, where he wrote a letter to his wife, Coca. Never one to burden her with his own troubles, he asked the usual questions about her welfare and that of his children, then closed optimistically: “Just now we are having a very hard time indeed. But we’ll survive. And after the winter, there is another May to follow….”

Chapter Twenty-one

For several weeks, German signal officers inside the Kessel had been trying to establish a reliable form of voice contact with Manstein, 150 miles to the southwest. Denied regular phone service by Russian cable cutters, they had created a minor technological miracle.

At the perimeter of the pocket they raised a 120-foot high antenna beacon that linked Gumrak with Novocherkassk by means of a radiotelephone combined with an ultra shortwave decimeter set that could not be mbnitored by the enemy. Constantly shelled and repaired, the beacon transmitted messages to relay stations installed in German-occupied territory. But one by one the relays fell to Russian tank columns. The radiotelephone link failed, and only a teleprinter remained to record the words produced by the decimeter machine. As the time arrived for Manstein and Paulus to make a final agonizing appraisal of their options, the chattering keys of the teleprinter became their only contact.

If the two men had been able to hear each other’s voices, certain intonations or inflections might have helped resolve the crisis. But as the situation stood, Major Eismann reported to Manstein that he did not believe Paulus would break out under prevailing conditions, and Manstein could sympathize with Paulus’s reasoning. However, Manstein was beginning to wonder whether or not General Schmidt was exerting undue influence on Paulus’s decision not to try a breakout without a proper quantity of fuel. To the field marshal, positive action was necessary within hours. Haggling over gasoline supplies was a luxury Sixth Army could not afford, especially since Manstein was being pressured to do something, anything, to save his own left wing.{The Eismann mission caused controversy among the German leaders. Field Marshal Manstein said that Eismann’s report of the conference convinced him that Paulus and Schmidt did not intend to break out under existing conditions. Arthur Schmidt has dismissed this conclusion by pointing out that he and Paulus merely outlined the tremendous problems they faced without adequate air supply. Further, Schmidt believes that Manstein used the remarks of the “lowly” major to justify his own subsequent actions. Friedrich von Paulus never referred publicly to the Eismann visit, thereby creating the impression that he did not attach any particular importance to it. No stenographic record of the conference exists.}

Unable to communicate the emotions of the moment, Paulus stood beside the teleprinter machine in the operation bunker at Gumrak shortly after midnight on December 19, and waited for its impersonal clickety-clack keyboard to begin moving. The machine hummed and leapt into life:

+++ Here Chief of Staff Army Group Don [General Schulz]….

+++ General Paulus answering….

+++ The field marshal [Manstein] requests your opinion regarding the following question:

What is your estimate of the possibility of a sortie toward the west in the direction of Kalach?…It has been ascertained the enemy is consolidating his position vis-a-vis the south front….

[Confused, Paulus asked]: +++ Consolidation opposite which south front is meant? Opposite south front 6th Army or Group Hoth?

[Schulz hastened to clarify:] +++ Opposite south front 6th Army….

[Paulus hesitated to give a quick answer:] +++ [I will] Reply by radio…

[Schulz:] +++ Any further questions?

[The teletype operator answered for Paulus:] +++ The general said no and has gone….

But Paulus was back shortly with his opinion, sent on to Manstein by wireless.

Number 404

19 December 1942, 0135 hours

TOP SECRET

To Army Group Don

Sortie toward the south at present still easier, since Russians vis-a-vis south front of Army even less prepared for defense and weaker than in direction Kalach….[to the west]

Paulus

Forty-five miles south of the Kessel, the German 17th Panzer Division rushed to position itself on the left flank of the 6th Panzer Division, trying to break through to Paulus. Finally released into action by Hitler, the 17th added the extra firepower needed to break down Russian resistance, and in the early afternoon of December 19, the German tanks went back to Verkhne-Kumski, where hundreds of Red Army men suddenly climbed from their rifle pits and raised their hands in submission. While the tankers waved these prisoners to the rear, the 6th Panzer Division received new orders: Strike quickly for the bridge at Vassilevska, fifteen miles northeast at the Mishkova River. The Stalingrad Kessel, its tanks and artillery readied, was only twenty-five air miles beyond that town.

As early winter darkness intruded, the rejuvenated Germans raced off on an ice-coated road. In front of them, the horizon began to blink with muzzle bursts from concealed Russian artillery emplacements.

At Novocherkassk, Erich von Manstein carefully prepared his summation on how Sixth Army might be saved. The plea was directed to Adolf Hitler.

Teletype!

19 Dec. 42, 1425 hrs.

TOP SECRET, “Chefsache,” Transmittal by officers only.

To Chief of General Staff of the Army for immediate submittal to the Fuhrer.

The situation… has developed in such a manner, that a relief of the Sixth Army cannot be expected in the foreseeable future.

Because of the shortage of available aircraft as well as the inclement weather, an air supply and thus the maintenance of the Army…are not possible—as was proven during the four weeks since the encirclement….The