Enemy at the Gates

pine away gradually….”

Quartermaster Karl Binder wrote his twenty-sixth letter from the Russian front. It was another poignant attempt to prepare his family for death:

My dearest wife,

I am still alive and alright [sic]. Today—Sunday—I attended the funeral of several soldiers of my bakery company. It is cruel what you witness in the cemeteries. Should I ever return home, I will never forget what I have seen. It is an epic second to none. I am sorry that I have not received any letters from you since December 5. I would be so happy to read a word of love from you for one does not know what the next hour, the next day will have in store. My dearest wife, come what may, I am prepared for everything. When the time comes I shall die a soldier…God is with us every hour—these were the words of the Protestant minister at the cemetery, which is overflowing. It increases in dimension like an avalanche. But the brutal enemy is still kept under control. He will not succeed in overwhelming us, as long as I have one hand that can hold a weapon.

Time is now so short that I must concern myself about the end of everything. I have lived my life—not always a pious one—and life has always handled me roughly. There have been times when a spark of carelessness or passion controlled my heart. But I have always endeavored to be decent, a comrade, a soldier. I also tried to be a good husband to you and a good father to the children. I don’t know if I was successful. Probably I was too harsh, but I had only one thing in mind: your happiness. It is too late to change anything, apart from the fact that I don’t know what I could change, but I love all of you more than ever. Bring up the children for their benefit. Life has not provided me with much sunshine. Most of it came from you and the children so let me thank you here and now….

With us, Death is a daily guest. He has lost all his horrors for me…. In case I fall, move to Schwabisch Gmund as soon as possible. Life is cheaper there. There are 1,900 reichsmark on my account at the post office savings bank. My belongings are in a small suitcase, a big handbag, a bootbag and perhaps a small wooden suitcase.

I don’t know if you will get these things…. The garrison liquidation office and the maintenance board in Stuttgart will give you information about your pension.

Throw away my uniforms. The rest is yours, …I wish you and the children all the best for the future. Let us hope that we shall be reunited in the other world. Don’t be sad, the worst may not happen. But I feel urged to set everything in order. God’s will be done. So never say die. I won’t either, in spite of everything.

All my love and affectionate kisses to you. I shall love you unto death.

Karl

My love and kisses to the dear children.

Chapter Twenty-six

In the first days of January, German observation posts along the southern and western sides of the Kessel phoned in alarming reports of a massive Russian buildup. Observers counted hundreds of T-34 tanks churning through the snow, plus troop-carrying trucks that brazenly roared past German outposts to hidden points of concentration just over the horizon. Then there were the heavy guns, thousands of them wheeling by, from the multibarreled Kaytusha rocket launchers to 210-millimeter siege howitzers.

In their cramped holes, the Germans were powerless to interfere. Ammunition had to be saved for an actual attack.

Knowing their enemy was impotent, Russian soldiers set up huge field kitchens, from which the aroma of hot food wafted toward Sixth Army foxholes. This sensual torture was worse for the Germans than seeing the tanks and guns that spelled imminent disaster.

Joseph Stalin had finally put his generals in motion to crush Paulus. Artillery genius Nikolai Nikolaevich Voronov appeared at the edge of the Kessel to lend his authority to plans for the final offensive. On a line seven miles long, he proposed the installation of seven thousand guns, more than enough to burst through the German perimeter.

Another key part in the new Soviet offensive was delegated to Vassili Chuikov in the city of Stalingrad. Aware that Paulus still kept seven divisions along the Volga despite manpower shortages elsewhere on his flanks, STAVKA assigned his Sixtysecond Army a significant tactical role in the final liquidation of the pocket.

Chuikov learned of this when a distinguished visitor, Gen. Konstantin Rokossovsky, came across the Volga to his cliffside bunker. Sitting on an earthen bench, the front commander gave Chuikov the details. While simultaneous attacks were being mounted from west, north, and south, Sixty-second Army had to… attract more enemy forces in its direction, preventing them from reaching the Volga if they try to break out of encirclement…”

When Rokossovsky asked whether the Sixty-second Army could contain any such desperate enemy maneuver, General Krylov, Chuikov’s chief aide, answered for his superior: “If in the summer and autumn all Paulus’s forces were unable to drive us into the Volga, then the hungry and frozen Germans won’t even move six steps eastward.”

Each day, Sixty-second Army shock troops continued to intimidate these hungry and frozen Germans, who gave ground slowly as they scurried from cellar to cellar. Firefights erupted endlessly in workshops, apartment houses, and workers’ homes, all mere shells by now but filled with desperate human beings, at bay and dangerous.

Trapped for more than three months in their concrete barn behind German lines, Natasha Kornilov and her mother lay under a blanket on the icy floor and listened to a sudden flurry of grenade explosions and staccato bursts from machine guns. The eleven-year-old girl had just come back from her daily trip to garbage heaps on the streets. Once again she had failed to find any food. Since the beginning of the encirclement, Natasha had come home empty-handed most of the time and by now, she was finding it extremely difficult to gather enough strength to walk out the door. But she always did, for otherwise she knew her mother would die of starvation.

Beside her under the blanket, Mrs. Kornilov had watched her eleven-year-old daughter waste away. The child’s eyes bugged out from a hollowed face. Her dress hung limply on a skeletal frame. The girl’s arms were like broomsticks. Though neither dared to voice her fears to the other, each wondered how long they could go on. Each prayed that the other would not die and leave the survivor alone in the concrete barn.

Gunfire outside rose to a crescendo, bullets pinged off the walls. The door flew open and a soldier trained his rifle on the figures under the covers. Natasha heard him say something in a guttural voice, then hands reached down and someone was gruffly telling her that everything was all right. Natasha smiled weakly into the bearded face of a Russian infantryman.

Twenty-five miles to the west, Pitomnik Airport was rapidly deteriorating into a living hell. At the two main medical stations, German doctors had been overwhelmed by an influx of wounded. Patients begged for medication to stop their pain, but with drugs in short supply, medics were forced to issue them only to the worst cases. Outside the hospitals, countless bodies lay unburied. So far, however, the corpses were being stacked in neat rows for future interment.

A few of the passengers on outgoing planes looked remarkably healthy. Specialists and administrators, they had been ordered to leave the pocket to form the nucleus of new divisions. Some benefited from General Seydlitz’s abortive attempt to force a retreat in November: The staff of the 94th Division boarded Junkers and embarked on a mission to rebuild that “ghost” organization.

Their division veterinarian, Herbert Rentsch, stayed behind to dispose of his livestock. His camels had just been slaughtered and now Rentsch processed the last of his twelve hundred horses for food. But he still refused to