Enemy at the Gates

Werth, United Press correspondent Eddy Gilmore, and Ralph Parker from The New York Times. Tall, with long dark hair brushed back, the ruddy-faced Malinovsky quickly admitted to his guests that Manstein’s December offensive toward Stalingrad 1 had caught the Russians napping. But then he hailed the gains of the Red Army counteroffensive and its effects on the enemy, “For the first time the Germans are showing signs of bewilderment. Trying to fill in gaps, they are throwing their troops about from one place to another….The German officers we have captured are extremely disappointed in their high command and in the Fuhrer himself….”

When the reporters asked him about the drive to crush Paulus in the Kessel, Malinovsky was bluntly confident: “Stalingrad is an armed prisoners camp, and its position is hopeless….”

Sixth Army Radio: January 12. “Continuous bombardments since 7 A.M. Cannot reply…. Since 8 A.M. heavy enemy attacks along all front lines with numerous tanks….Army has ordered as a last means of resistance that every soldier has to fight to the last bullet at the place he is holding right now.”

At Pitomnik, a single Russian T-34 tank broke through the thin perimeter defense and clanked onto the crowded runway. Its appearance induced panic among the Germans who stampeded away from the planes, the hospitals, the wounded, and ran east on the road to Gumrak and Stalingrad. The tank leisurely cruised the strip, firing at a wide choice of targets, and “the heart of the fortress” skipped several beats.

Hearing the news of the tank’s appearance, Gen. Arthur Schmidt jumped to the phone and screamed his outrage at half a dozen officers responsible for protecting the field. Schmidt’s anger galvanized the chagrined commanders into restoring Pitomnik to service after a short delay. But in the confusion, in one of those miraculous incidents of war, the Soviet T-34 simply disappeared in the haze and escaped.

Later that day, Paulus dispatched one of his most trusted generals for help. Wolfgang Pickert, leader of the 9th Flak Division, flew through a raging snowstorm to Novocherkassk. During the flight, he scribbled notes of his arguments on the margin of a newspaper in his own special shorthand code in case the plane was shot down. It was an unnecessary precaution. He landed safely and rushed to confer with Army Group Don about chances for a dramatic upsurge in supplies.

Inside the shrinking Kessel, on the road between Karpovka and Pitomnik, trucks moved carefully through congested traffic. In one of them, Sgt. Ernst Wohlfahrt rode beside the driver. Recently detached from artillery spotting inside the dread Barrikady Gun Factory, Wohlfahrt was glad to be out in the open, where he could raise his head without fearing that a sniper might take it off.

Behind him, someone shouted that Russian tanks had broken into the convoy. The driver floored the accelerator and the truck leaped ahead, straight at several wounded men scrambling frantically to get out of the way. One vehicle after another hit them and rolled their bodies under the wheels. Wohlfahrt saw arms and legs flailing madly when his truck smashed into the victims and passed on. Looking back, Wohlfahrt noticed that no one slowed down to remove the corpses.

On the western side of the pocket, curly-haired Hubert Wirkner crouched in his snowhole. His feet were frozen; flesh came off them in long strips. His right hand had been punctured by shrapnel, but he had not been able to find a doctor.

While Wirkner stoically endured the pain, a Russian T-34 tank fired a shell directly at him. Two companions took the full force of the explosion. One man’s face disintegrated; the other’s right arm flew into the air. Wirkner’s body was a sieve. Hauled from the gory pit by friends, he was taken to Gumrak, where thousands of soldiers lay unattended. Wirkner was placed in a converted horse stable, fifty yards long, with perhaps twenty men around him on cots. A medic assured him that his chances for a flight out of the Kessel were good.

A short distance away from Wirkner’s improvised hospital, the Gumrak message center kept up a steady stream of “life and death” chatter to Army Group Don, recording the fading pulse beat of Sixth Army.

+++ Herr General Paulus gave permission to Oberleutnant Georg Reymann, regiment 549, to marry Miss Lina Hauswald. Neustadt…. Please forward. [a proxy marriage]

+++ Proposal of decoration General Pfeiffer sent…. Oberleutnant Boris received German Cross, gold.

+++ Dead in action according to present information, Zschunke, Hegermann, Holzmann, Quadflieg, Hulsman, Rothmann, Hahmann….Losses of officers and troops not accountable at present, but very high….

Later, Sixth Army radio: January 13, 9:30 A.M.

+++ Ammunition is almost exhausted. For the assistance of the completely worn-out…troops, no reserves available in terms of men, tanks, antitank, and heavy weapons.

A German transport plane circled over Pitomnik and asked permission to land. The request was denied and Gen. Wolfgang Pickert told the pilot to go around again, until Russian gunfire lifted enough to allow a safe touchdown. The plane made several turns before the pilot - warned the general he was running low on fuel. Reluctantly, Pickert ordered the aircraft back to Novocherkassk, from where he hoped to try another flight into the pocket.

His mission to Manstein had failed. No one at Army Group Don ever offered any encouragement; no one in the Luftwaffe gave him hope, because barely seventy-five aircraft were left in running condition. More than four hundred transports had been shot down. Russian fighters ruled the skies.

At Pitomnik, ground controllers finally cleared the runways for landings. From the hospital sheds, hundreds of wounded walked or crawled to the edge of the concrete strip. When Junkers and Heinkels roared in under sporadic gunfire, the crippled rushed the opened doors and hatches. Doctors and pilots stood them off with drawn pistols while “ticketed” casualties went on board.

A major approached one pilot and offered him ten thousand reichsmarks for a seat on his plane. Before the pilot could reply, a mob of wild-eyed patients knocked the major aside and pushed into the aircraft. The pilot looked on helplessly. When he lifted off the runway a short time later, he carried a full complement of wounded. The major who offered him the bribe was left behind.

On the same day, a special courier left Pitomnik with Paulus’s blessing. The general had ordered Capt. Winrich Behr to take the truth about the situation directly to Adolf Hitler. Still unable to believe that the Fuhrer had written off his army, Paulus wanted Behr to emphasize the fact that unless the airlift brought forth a cornucopia of food and ammunition, Sixth Army would perish long before any spring offensive.

Stunned and somewhat guilty at being chosen, Behr protested loudly. But his friend “Schmidtchen,” General Schmidt, convinced him to go and handed him Pass Number 7 as his key to freedom.

Carrying the War Diary of the Sixth Army under his arm, “Teddy” Behr took off at 5:00 P.M. and soared over the darkened plain, lit fitfully by shellbursts and arching tracer bullets. In an hour, the captain was safe in Novocherkassk and there he rested briefly before the long trip to East Prussia.

The plane that took Captain Behr from Pitomnik carried another batch of letters from husbands to wives, sons to parents. Though a strain of fatalism predominated, a surprisingly large percentage of them swore continued fealty to the Fuhrer and the Fatherland.

Captain Gebhardt, APO No. 20329, wrote to his wife:

January 13, 1943

Our boss will be flown out and he will take this letter with him…. So far, I am still doing well in spite of all the difficulties—the grim frost and the pressure exerted by the enemy. The moon is shining outside and its blue light gives a miraculous touch to the snow crusts on the walls of the stables in the ravine where we have dug into the