Barbarossa (45 page)

However, before leaving Starobelsk, Manstein had had a long
telephone conversation with Zeitzler. Their discussion seems to have
been confined to the plight of the 6th Army, but is important as
representing the first impact of a cool and rational intellect upon
the problem (as distinct from a series of conflicting reflexes,
triggered by alarm and emotion or rigid professional orthodoxy), and
also in view of the recriminatory atmosphere which has pervaded the
whole issue of Paulus' encirclement and reduction ever since.

Manstein maintained that a breakout to the southwest (i.e., down
the left bank of the Don) was "probably still possible even
now." To leave the army at Stalingrad any longer constituted an
extreme risk, in view of the ammunition and fuel shortage.

[It should be remembered that at the time of this conversation
Manstein was basing his assessment on the faulty estimate made to him
by Sodenstem.]

But although the bulk of the Panzer forces would probably get
through, there was a risk that the infantry, leaving its prepared
positions around and in the town, might be destroyed on the open
steppe.

Nevertheless, since he considered that the best chance for an
independent breakout had already been missed, Manstein's view was
that ". . . it was preferable from the operational point of view
at the present time to wait until the projected relief groups could
come to the army's aid." He would be able to launch this relief
operation with the forces due to arrive at the beginning of December.
"To achieve real effect, however, it would require a steady flow
of further reinforcements, as the enemy would also be throwing in
powerful forces on his own side." An isolated breakout by the
6th Army might still be necessary "if strong enemy pressures
were to prevent us from deploying these new forces."

Manstein claims that he concluded the conversation by emphasising
that unless the delivery of supplies could be guaranteed ". . .
one could not risk leaving Sixth Army in its present situation any
longer, however temporarily."

The whole question of Stalingrad and the fate of the 6th Army is
so clouded with guilt in the German mind that in holding an inquiry
twenty years after, it is almost impossible to find any "witness"
who has told the whole truth. In his account of this conversation
Manstein makes no mention of having used the same basic strategic
argument, which he prints later on in his memoirs, as a "reflection,"
namely that ". . . at the same time as the extricated elements
of Sixth Army might have been joining Fourth Panzer Army, the entire
enemy siege forces would have been released. With that, in all
probability,
the fate of the whole southern wing of the German
forces in the east would have been sealed—including Army Group
A.
" Indeed, he goes further, and says, ". . . the
latter consideration played absolutely no part in shaping our
appreciation of 24th November." Why not? one may well ask. Are
we really to believe that this fundamental strategic truth neither
occurred to nor was expounded by the leading military intellect on
the German side?

But because the 6th Army never escaped, and because had it
attempted a breakout in November
some
of its soldiers would
have escaped, no responsible person will now admit to having advised
against it. Instead, the usual semi-articulate conspiracy which aims
to saddle Hitler with the responsibility for every defeat in the
field which the German Army sustained has evolved a conventional
fiction—to the effect that the Army was "prevented"
from breaking out by Hitler's expressly denying them this course of
action.

The facts are as follows: The capture of the Kalach bridge and the
junction of the Russian 21st and 51st armies took place on 23rd
November. This effectively blocked the 6th Army's last escape
route—but by then the ring had already hardened around it, over
at least three quarters of its circumference. It was not until that
day (23rd November) that Paulus made any request for freedom to
manoeuvre.

Then, in a message sent
directly to Hitler
at OKW
headquarters, he said that all his corps commanders "considered
it absolutely imperative that the army should break out to the
southwest. To raise the forces needed for such an operation, he would
have to shift certain formations around inside the army and, for the
purpose of economising in troops, take his northern front back on a
shorter line." Why was this request sent straight to OKW? The
proper course was for Paulus to communicate with Weichs at Army Group
B. Furthermore, Paulus had been Oberquartiermeister I at OKH
throughout the previous winter. He was painfully familiar with the
Fuhrer's attitude to "shortening the front" under enemy
pressure (an attitude, let it be remembered, which had worked
remarkably well during that critical period). He must have known in
advance what the answer would be.

There is also another point which should be made. Why did Paulus
wait nearly four days before asking for permission to redistribute
his forces? The 6th Army had felt its flanks severed on 19th
November. Ordinary prudence—let alone the rigid training of the
General Staff—should have led to an immediate adjustment in
coordination with Army Group B. This at least would have avoided the
situation where the 48th Panzer Corps and 3rd Motorised Division
(striking westward toward Kalach from Stalingrad) were defeated in
detail. For these two moves, already jeopardised by their inadequate
strength, lost any advantage they might have derived from converging
axes by starting off at an interval of nearly twenty-four hours.

Paulus' delay in asking for instructions has additional
importance. His message to OKW was dated 23rd November. Even if
immediate assent to a withdrawal had been given, the earliest by
which the 6th Army could have been moved into a "ram"
formation for breaking out would have been 28th November.

[This was "The view taken at Army Group Headquarters"
(Manstein 302). It is possible that it erred on the side of pessimism
(but see p. 303). There was no question of the encircled troops'
simply leaving their emplacements and doing an about turn. Their
whole order of battle was inverted, with the majority of the tanks
(which would have to spearhead the drive southwest) distributed in
close support at the eastern side of the pocket. The bulk of the
artillery was also sited offensively in the east. It would have had
to be redistributed in a screen along the northern side.]

By that time the Russian concentrations would have been so strong
that the result would in all probability have been the same as in
February—namely, total annihilation. Had a certain debris
finally got through, its arrival would have been small compensation
for the release of all the investing forces which would have been
free to strike at Rostov and aggravate the precarious situation of
Army Group A.

In making this assessment we are greatly helped by what we now
know of the Russians' strength and intentions at that time. The most
important point to remember and the most difficult, in the light of
their subsequent scale of operations, is that Zhukov's aim was
strictly limited—and greatly affected by his experiences of the
previous winter. In December 1941 the Russians had fought like a
boxer who, after flooring his man for a count of eight, charges in
again and smothers his opponent with blows no single one of which is
deadly. These exertions sapped their strength and gave their dazed
opponent time to recover. This time the
Stavka
had but one
primary aim, the isolation and destruction of the 6th Army. If that
was achieved it was confident that the offensive power of the
Wehrmacht would be broken, and that it would never have cause to
dread the onset of the summer campaigning season again. The whole
operation was deliberately confined to the quadrilateral—less
than a hundred miles square—bounded by Stalingrad and the
eastern corner of the Don bend. Into this area the Russians had
concentrated seven of the nine reserve armies which had been built up
for the winter campaign, and limited their scope to take maximum
advantage of their qualities—mass, surprise, and (once the trap
had been closed) resolution in defence—and to throw the least
strain on their weaknesses. Zhukov knew that the standard of
training, and the initiative of commanders at the lower level, would
make too deep and ambitious penetration with his armour a risky
affair.

[Mellenthin (182), writing of the battles against the 5th Tank
Army (tiie elite of all the new Soviet armies) in December, when it
was first probing to the west of the Don, says, "The foolish
repetition of attacks on the same spot, the rigidity of artillery
fire, and the selection of the terrain for the attack betrayed a
total lack of imagination and mental mobility. Our Wireless Intercept
Service heard many a time the frantic question: 'What are we to do
now?' . . . On many occasions a successful attack, a breakthrough,
or an accomplished encirclement was not exploited simply because
nobody saw it."]

He knew, too, that many of the corps and even the army commanders
had neither the flexibility nor the imagination for a "general
intention." At all costs those wasteful and repetitive attacks
which had characterised the fighting in the Rzhev salient the
previous winter had to be avoided. And so each phase of that critical
first week was meticulously worked out; every task and objective was
covered three or four times over. Zhukov was determined to dig his
two thousand guns around the 6th Army in an unbreakable chain, and
determined also that no other opportunity, however temptingly it
beckoned, would be allowed to distract him from this.

In fact, though, the Russian blow had been delivered with such
strength that the whole German front was broken at its apex and
threatened with disintegration. There is no doubt that the primary
factor in the recovery was Zhukov's determination to avoid the risks
of mobile warfare, and his refusal to commit the mass of his army
westward until the 6th Army had been eliminated. Thus the decision
(if it can be called that) to make Paulus defend Stalingrad as a
hedgehog position meant that the weight of the Russian offensive was
tied back between the Volga and the Don, and time, both to reshape
its front and to organise a relieving force, was granted to the
German High Command at the very moment when it must have seemed to
run out.

During the first days of December, Manstein worked frantically to
assemble sufficient strength for an effort to relieve the 6th Army.
His responsibility was effectively divided into three separate areas,
of which Paulus' command was by far the strongest in terms of
numbers.

[Surrounded at Stalingrad were:

Headquarters and entire command organisation of the 6th Army.

Headquarters staff of five army corps (4th, 8th, 11th, 14th
Panzer, and 51st).

Thirteen infantry divisions (44th, 71st, 76th, 79th, 94th, 100th
Jaeger, 113th, 295th, 305th, 371st, 376th, 389th, and 397th). Three
Panzer divisions (14th, 16th, and 24th).

Three motorised divisions (3rd, 29th, and 60th).

One anti-aircraft division (9th).

In addition there were a number of special engineer units which
had been brought in to help in the street fighting with their expert
knowledge of demolition, two depleted Rumanian divisions, and a Croat
regiment. There must also have been about 8,000-10,000 German
B-echelon troops, making a total (excluding satellites) of
220,000-230,000 Germans.]

During the first desperate week after the Russian breakthrough
Army Group Don had been holding its front with a ragged mixture of
"
Ad hoc
units formed from noncombat units, headquarters
staffs, Luftwaffe troops and Army personnel who had been on the way
back to their parent units from privilege or sick leave. These
'emergency units' lacked cohesion, seasoned officers and weapons
(especially antitank protection and artillery), and most of them had
little or no battle experience or training in close combat." But
as has been seen, it was no part of Zhukov's plan to drive westward
until he had really tightened his lock on Stalingrad, and as the days
passed, the thin screen gradually acquired a stiffening of men and
firepower. The Germans even managed to hold their bridgehead at
Nizhne-Chirskaya, at the confluence of the Chir and the Don.

It was into this area, the flat plain that lay southwest of the
Chir, that Manstein directed the first of his reinforcements. The
remains of the 48th Panzer Corps were folded back due south from
Veshenskaya as an anchor on which the line of the northern Don might
still be held and a new corps headquarters formed to the southeast,
into which by 4th December three fresh divisions had been moved.

[These were the 11th Panzer, 336th Infantry, and 7th Luftwaffe
Field Division.]

One of these, the 11th Panzer, was probably the finest armoured
formation on the Eastern front. Its commander, General Balck, was a
leader of Rommel's calibre—though his antithesis in appearance.
Photographs show him a slight, almost stooping figure, with a
detached expression. Only the eyes, hard and alert, betray his
restless energy. Balck was particularly ruthless with his
subordinates, and every officer of the division was of his mould.

[Balck wrote, "We were fortunate that after the hard fighting
in previous campaigns all commanders whose nerves could not stand the
test had been replaced by proven men. There was no commander left who
was not absolutely reliable."]

The 11th Panzer had been in OKH reserve since October, and had its
full complement of tanks and assault guns.

Another very strong division, the 6th Panzer, had been entrained
from the West on 24th November, and was scheduled for redeployment in
Army Group Don by 8th December. Furthermore, an additional two
infantry divisions (the 62nd and 294th), another Luftwaffe field
division, and a mountain division were put into Army Detachment
Hollidt.