[12] All the while, Paulus remained silent; the only time he spoke during the conference "was to agree with his chief of staff".[13]. [13], The decision not to negotiate with the Soviet envoys who bore an ultimatum to Paulus on 8 and 9 January 1943, was, for example, made by Schmidt, not Paulus, as Colonel Wilhelm Adam told one of the envoys, Captain Nikolay Dyatlenko, during his post-battle interrogation. Certainly, in their time they assessed the political-military situation of Germany with perseverance and sobriety, developed principles and positions for the strategy and tactics of a general nature, which were valid for the special situation in which Germany would be in a state of war. The commander of the encircled troops did not issue the order, however. List of important officers and commanders of the German Wehrmacht, the Russian Red Army, Romanian Army, Italian army and Hungarian Army in the Battle of Stalingrad . We Germans have seen that in the 20th century, such "power politics" that a strong and rich country seeks to pursue at the expense of other countries is doomed to failure. [34] Unlike many German prisoners of war, such as Paulus himself and von Seydlitz-Kurzbach, Schmidt refused to co-operate with the Soviets, despite the NKVD's attempt to ingratiate themselves by serving him caviar and champagne in a luxury railway coach. It now seemed more impossible than ever to act against an order of the High Command or Army Group.[17]. According to Beevor: [Soviet commanders] were increasingly convinced that Paulus was virtually a prisoner in his own headquarters, guarded by his chief of staff [Schmidt]. [11] Schmidt maintained that the army, which would adopt a "hedgehog" defence, must be resupplied, but that the situation was not yet so desperate as there were plenty of horses left that could serve as food. He remained in that post until May 1939, when he was promoted to major general and became chief of staff for the German Tenth Army, with which he saw service in Poland. The Germans had already had the successful experience of using an air bridge to resupply the 100,000-strong II Army Corps cut off near Demyansk at the beginning of the same year and successfully releasing it from its trap after several months of encirclement. [10] He re-emphasised that before Sixth Army could break out to the south: "We must have fuel and ammunition delivered by the Luftwaffe." [2] On 26 January 1942 he was awarded the German Cross in Gold.[3]. However, after the attempted assassination of Hitler on 20 July 1944, he became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime while in Soviet captivity, joining the Soviet-sponsored National Committee for a Free Germany appealing to Germans to surrender. Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus (23 September 1890 1 February 1957) was a German field marshal during World War II who is best known for commanding the 6th Army during the Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 to February 1943). According to Soviet statistics, from 1945 to 1956, over 580,000 people died in prison camps, over 356,000 of them Germans. Februar 1957 in Dresden-Oberloschwitz) war ein deutscher Heeresoffizier (ab 1943 Generalfeldmarschall) und im Zweiten Weltkrieg Oberbefehlshaber der 6. Oktober 1895 in Hamburg; 5. On the night of January 31, 1943, units of the 64th Army's 38th. World War II [32] When their baggage was searched for sharp metal objects, Schmidt, referring to Paulus, snapped at the Soviet officers: "A German Field Marshal does not commit suicide with a pair of scissors. He was told that "The Luftwaffe doesn't have enough aircraft." When presented with the commander of 51st Corps General Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach's 25 November memorandum to Paulus, detailing plans for a breakout, Schmidt said: "We don't have to break the head of the Fhrer for him, and neither does General von Seydlitz have to break the head of [General Paulus]. January 1943). The German commander, according to Laskins recollections, greeted the members of the delegation with a sentence in broken Russian: Field Marshal of the German Army Paulus renders himself prisoner to the Red Army. He apologized that, since his new rank had only been conferred on him on January 30, his new uniform wasnt ready and he was compelled to appear in his colonel-generals uniform. [6] Many false reports of the massing of Soviet forces were received from the Romanian sector, so when Stck radioed at 5 a.m. on 19 November that an offensive (marking the start of Operation Uranus, the Soviet encirclement of Axis forces) was about to begin, Schmidt, who was furious when disturbed by false alarms, was not informed,[7] although he was awoken twenty minutes later when it became clear that this was no false alarm. The march towards the Volga had ended.[17]. Still, they believed that they could avoid disaster. With the new year, Hitler promoted Paulus to colonel general. Almost 70% of deaths occurred in the winter of 1945-1946. General Schmidt; an ardent Nazi, that the Luftwaffe would not be able to supply an encircled 6th army from the air alone. [33], Of all the senior German officers held at Zavarykino, Schmidt was the most disliked by the Soviets; on one occasion he apparently reduced a mess waitress to tears during lunch, for which a Soviet officer, Lieutenant Bogomolov, made him apologise. A Gnther Angern D Alexander Edler von Daniels Heinrich-Anton Deboi Moritz von Drebber F Max Fremerey G Eccard Freiherr von Gablenz H Alexander von Hartmann Walter Heitz Nach dem Krieg wurde er in die Reichswehr bernommen. After the Armistice, Paulus was a brigade adjutant with the Freikorps. He was, in any case, a defender of a united and sovereign Germany. The enemy wanted to start negotiations. Dyatlenko had no doubt that Schmidt was "the eyes and hand of the Nazi Party" in the Sixth Army, because captured officers reported that "Schmidt was commanding the Army and even Paulus himself."[21]. German officers who flew out of the Stalingrad pocket and became General Officer later during World War 2 End November early December 1942 Johannes Schmidt became sick. [9] At Nizhne-Chirskaya on 22 November, Schmidt told 8th Air Corps's commander, General Martin Fiebig, that Sixth Army needed to be resupplied by air. Schmidt and Paulus set up their HQ in the Kessel underneath the Univermag department store on the city's Red Square. Schmidt commented: Early on the 24th November, while Paulus and I were preparing the necessary measures for a breakout to the south, we received a 'Fhrer decision' from Army Group [] It said that the Sixth Army was to stay in Stalingrad and wait to be relieved. Panzerregiment 36, flew out : I recorded Paulus's new rank in his military document, stamped it with the seal then threw the seal into the glowing fire. So war er von Oktober 1940 bis 25. ", "Battle of Stalingrad a summary History in an Hour", " . : (02/07/1954)". Armee unterzeichnet hatte, geriet Schmidt am 31. Click here to find out more. Amidst the ruins of their city which the Germans had destroyed, Soviet soldiers would pull a piece of bread or cigarettes or tobacco out of their pocket and offer them to the weary, half-starved German soldiers., Sergeant Pyotr Alkhutov was present when the German commander was taken prisoner: Paulus was haggard and clearly ill. [36], After Voikovo, Schmidt was held in the Lubyanka prison. These characteristics of Paulus and Schmidt would prove fatal to the trapped garrison of Stalingrad. Hitler awarded the Knight's Cross to Schmidt on 6 January 1943 on the same day that Paulus signalled to General Kurt Zeitzler: "Army starving and frozen, have no ammunition and cannot move tanks any more" [25] and made him Generalleutnant on 17 January. While the Field Marshal was tidying himself up in the room next door, the Soviet negotiators presented his generals with an ultimatum: The encircled grouping must immediately stop any resistance, lay down its weapons and surrender to the Soviet troops in an orderly manner. We were in frenzied spirits and, had it made sense, we would have been shouting Hoorah! We were firing at every target that appeared, operating our machine guns to their very limit The Russian infantry dispersed in all directions; they must have thought we were madmen, is how 1st Lieutenant Horst Scheibert remembered the launch of Operation Winter Storm that aimed to break through to Friedrich Pauluss 6th Army encircled at Stalingrad. In June 1942, Nazi Germany was looking forward to victory. The last German success in Operation Winter Storm was reaching the Myshkova River 48 km from Stalingrad on December 19. Ahead for Friedrich Paulus lay Soviet camps, work in the anti-fascist National Committee for a Free Germany and life in the GDR for the short time left to him. The Red Army soldiers were well nourished, full of vigor and dressed in fine winter uniforms I was deeply moved by something else. [35] Together with most German officers, Schmidt was moved to Camp 48 at Voikovo, although he was kept away from Paulus by the NKVD, apparently because he was considered to be a bad influence on him. What happened to the first German Field Marshal made prisoner?On January 31, 1943, in the basement of the Univermag department store, Field Marshal Paulus su. It has been suggested that much of the reason for Schmidt's ascendancy over Paulus lay in the fact that, unlike Paulus, Schmidt was a committed Nazi, and Paulus, afraid of Hitler and conscious of his responsibility for Sixth Army's catastrophic position, saw Schmidt as a cipher for the Fhrer whom he could placate. However, the lack of food and ammunition, equipment losses and the deteriorating physical condition of the German troops gradually wore down the German defense. The general feared that, deprived of their armored strike force, the slow-moving bulk of his troops would simply be ground into dust by the Red Army in the freezing steppe. Diese Seite wurde zuletzt am 24. Schmidt was appointed chief of staff to General Friedrich Paulus in Sixth Army on 15 May 1942, replacing Colonel Ferdinand Heim after the counter-attack against Marshal Semyon Timoshenko at the Second Battle of Kharkov. The governments responsible for this have both put their armed forces in front of insoluble problems. The Soviet units and subunits already there were to contain the enemy until its arrival. By the end of the war, he was a captain. [11], Paulus followed Adolf Hitler's orders to hold his positions in Stalingrad under all circumstances, despite the fact that he was completely surrounded by strong Soviet forces. report to Hitlers headquarters to personally Pages in category "German commanders at the Battle of Stalingrad" The following 25 pages are in this category, out of 25 total. For the next two months, Paulus and his men fought on. These two peoples must put aside all conflicts between them, all the more so because German-French relations are the link in the dangerous chain held by the Americans to turn one European people against the other and use them as a vehicle for their own policy.[23]. Armee. Dyatlenko had no doubt that Schmidt was "the eyes and hand of the Nazi Party" in the Sixth Army, because captured officers reported that "Schmidt was commanding the Army and even Paulus himself."[21]. After all the formalities had been settled and the Field Marshal had received guarantees of his personal safety, he was led out of the basement, along with his staff officers. He Hitler, leery of the reasons for Paulus' transfer to Nizhne-Chirskaya, orders him to move his HQ again. Interrogation of captured German officers led Soviet commanders to realise that, because of the toll of events on Paulus's nerves, Schmidt was the real commander of the defending forces. In 1953, Paulus moved to East Germany, where he worked in military history research. The frontline was holding on with the last of its strength, banking on Hitler imminently, in the run-up to Christmas, fulfilling his promise of relief. White flags appeared from the ground and second floors. Guderian described him as "brilliantly clever, conscientious, hard working, original and talented" but had severe doubts about his decisiveness, toughness and lack of command experience. Click here to find out more. Our soldiers were not beaten, let alone shot. In it, he paid respect to the memory of General Heinz Guderian, who had died a little over a month previously, and criticized the political leaderships of the German Empire and Nazi Germany for causing the defeats of the German Army in both world wars: I have in mind in particular General Guderian, who died prematurely, and with whom I was particularly close, as chief of staff for the organization of the armored troops, and we were carrying out a task together. Juni 1942 zum Generalmajor ernannt und nahm an der Schlacht von Stalingrad teil. Every day that the army holds out longer helps the whole front and draws away the Russian divisions from it. Only if that happens is there a chance of the war going well for Germany. An ordinary lieutenant could not accept the capitulation of the German commander and, gradually, representatives of the senior and top-level Red Army command started arriving at the department store. [10] Later that day, Schmidt and Paulus held a conference attended by General Hermann Hoth and Major-General Pickert,[10] during which Schmidt "did much of the talking". It formed part of the German Third Army that enacted the attack on France and Belgium in August 1914 as part of the pre-war Schlieffen Plan. Battle of Stalingrad, (July 17, 1942-February 2, 1943), successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Russia, U.S.S.R., during World War II. In late 1956, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and became progressively weaker. In that role he helped draft the plans for the invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa. He attained the rank of Generalleutnant during World War II, and is best known for his role as the Sixth Army's chief of staff in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942-43, during the final stages of which he became its de facto commander, playing a large role in executing Hitler's order . Other historians, such as Mitcham, agree: As the situation in Stalingrad deteriorated, Paulus's self-confidence declined, and he allowed himself (and 6th Army) to be more and more guided by his chief of staff, until Arthur Schmidt was virtually conducting the battle for the German side. February 9, 1943 The Russian blow at Kursk was so fierce and the threat of encirclement so great that the Germans fled frantically, throwing away quantities of equipment. This was a new formation under the direction of Oswald Lutz that directed the training and development of the Panzerwaffe, or tank forces of the German army. But how shockingly different their external appearance was! recalled Wilhelm Adam, adjutant to the 6th Army commander. Kurt Zeitzler, the newly appointed chief of the Army General Staff, eventually got Hitler to allow Paulus to break outprovided he continue to hold Stalingrad, an impossible task. [6] This is incorrect, as Paulus' family was never part of the nobility,[citation needed] and Antony Beevor refers to his "comparatively humble birth" (like Rommel's family; their "sole similarity").[7]. The department store building in Stalingrad. On the order of the brigade commander, Colonel Ivan Burmakov, a group of negotiators led by Senior Lieutenant Fyodor Ilchenko headed for the department store building. On 4 July 1912 he married the Romanian Constance Elena Rosetti-Solescu, the sister of a colleague who served in the same regiment. His troops fought Soviet forces defending Stalingrad for over three months in increasingly brutal urban warfare. said the Soviet general through his interpreter. They were all armed, some with weapons in their hands, some with them over their shoulders. As part of his last will and testament, his body was transported to Baden-Baden, West Germany, to be buried at the Hauptfriedhof (main cemetery)[24] next to his wife, who had died eight years earlier in 1949, not having seen her husband since his departure for the Eastern Front in the summer of 1942. It has been suggested that much of the reason for Schmidt's ascendancy over Paulus lay in the fact that, unlike Paulus, Schmidt was a committed Nazi, and Paulus, afraid of Hitler and conscious of his responsibility for Sixth Army's catastrophic position, saw Schmidt as a cipher for the Fhrer whom he could placate. Schmidt joined the army as a one-year volunteer on 10 August 1914, attaining the rank of Leutnant on 8 May 1915. Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus (23 September 1890 - 1 February 1957) was a German field marshal during World War II who is best known for commanding the 6th Army during the Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 to February 1943). . I prepared for my last official duty. For us Germans, this is particularly indicative. Tired of waiting for Friedrich Paulus himself to finally appear, the Soviet commanders went into his room. Snow fell from our vehicle tracks. Soviet and German soldiers, who just a few hours earlier had been shooting at one another, now stood quietly together in the yard. [36], After Voikovo, Schmidt was held in the Lubyanka prison. On the same plane as him "Award Document to General der Panzertruppe Paulus, Item Number: EU4642". Evacuating their HQ at Golubinsky amid a bonfire of burning files and stores, they flew to Nizhne-Chirskaya that same day, just missing Hitler's order that "Sixth Army stand firm in spite of danger of temporary encirclement." During the Nuremberg Trials, Paulus was asked about the Stalingrad prisoners by a journalist. https://books.google.com/books?id=OWOQAv01lYEC, https://books.google.com/books?id=inwd2rDaLm4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=isbn:1874622469&cd=1#q=schmidt, https://books.google.com/books?id=xg8QrmsLK-kC, https://books.google.com/books?id=qWuWOFS4o7AC&dq=%22arthur+Schmidt%22+stalingrad, "A Desperate Struggle to Save a Condemned Army: a critical review of the Stalingrad airlift", http://www.stormingmedia.us/44/4497/A449793.html, "Photographs of Schmidt at a Sixth Army reunion, Wiesbaden 1969", http://www.stalingrad.net/german-hq/members-aok-6/members_aok_6_a.htm, Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters, Articles incorporating text from Wikipedia, Lieutenant generals of the German Army (Wehrmacht), Recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, German prisoners of war in World War II held by the Soviet Union, German commanders at the Battle of Stalingrad, Knights of the House Order of Hohenzollern, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. It was the HQ commander. Paulus fought in World War I and saw action in France and the Balkans. "[27], Thyssen comments that both Paulus and Schmidt seemed to have forgotten Fiebig's statements on 21 and 22 November that the Luftwaffe would not be able to supply Sixth Army in the Kessel.[28]. Am 6. . Several hours later, accompanied by several colonels and lieutenant-colonels, Maj-Gen Ivan Laskin, chief of staff of the 64th Army, came down to the basement. Land Forces of the National People's Army, Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, The Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918, "The Battle of Stalingrad | Doomed from the start? At the same time, Paulus declined to order the northern pocket to surrender on the grounds that, since January 30, its commander, Col-Gen Karl Strecker, was directly accountable to Hitler. His final plan was to have two Stork aircraft towed by larger aircraft to Stalingrad, land and pick him up, then fly out of the pocket back to German lines. pocket and became General Officer, Chef Generalstab XIV. Rudolf Schmidt (12 May 1886 - 7 April 1957) was a general in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II who commanded the 2nd Panzer Army on the Eastern Front. Armee war diary and its annexes. Paulus led the drive on Stalingrad that summer. Everyone knows that our nation used to have great military experts, known all over the world, such as Clausewitz, Moltke the Elder, Schlieffen. that it was the best to fly him out of the But the city held, aided by the very destruction heaped on it by the Luftwaffe and Nazi tanks and artillery. This list may not reflect recent changes . It was some time before I could break out of the maze of thoughts and strange dreams that depressed me so greatly. [33], Of all the senior German officers held at Zavarykino, Schmidt was the most disliked by the Soviets; on one occasion he apparently reduced a mess waitress to tears during lunch, for which a Soviet officer, Lieutenant Bogomolov, made him apologise. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves . Paulus and his staff were captured on the morning of 31 January 1943. The German troops closest positions to the encircled 6th Army were in the area of the Chir River (just 40 km away). [16] However, on 24 November Sixth Army received a further Fhrer order relayed from Army Group B, ordering them to stand firm. When presented with the commander of 51st Corps General Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach's 25 November memorandum to Paulus, detailing plans for a breakout, Schmidt said: "We don't have to break the head of the Fhrer for him, and neither does General von Seydlitz have to break the head of [General Paulus]. A huge Soviet counteroffensive, planned by generals G.K. Zhukov, A.M. Vasilevsky, and Nikolay Nikolayevich Voronov, was launched on Nov. 19-20, 1942, in two spearheads, north and south of the German salient whose tip was at Stalingrad. [27], Thyssen comments that both Paulus and Schmidt seemed to have forgotten Fiebig's statements on 21 and 22 November that the Luftwaffe would not be able to supply Sixth Army in the Kessel.[28]. "[11] Schmidt maintained that the army, which would adopt a "hedgehog" defence, must be resupplied, but that the situation was not yet so desperate as there were plenty of horses left that could serve as food. Schmidt, confident of his own abilities, put many backs up within Sixth Army headquarters, although he also had his supporters. Adam later served in the National People's Army of East Germany . Following his orders, Paulus prepared to break out of Stalingrad. It appears the Storks only had the range to fly one way. How can he surrender himself to the Bolshevists?! Intensive talks started between Mansteins and Pauluss HQs about the need to embark on the implementation of Operation Thunderclap - a breakthrough by the 6th Army to meet Army Group Hoth. In this it would constantly face the danger that its southwesterly push could stall or the enemy could overwhelm its rear guard or flank defenses. A northern pocket centered on the tractor factory and a smaller southern pocket in the city center. Stalin himself was pessimistic. Thus, another prominent and experienced German politician stressed that a final implementation of the EDC agreement would be dangerous for the German nation. During his captivity, according to General Max Pfeffer, Paulus said, "I have no intention of shooting myself for this Bohemian corporal." He was not able to walk anymore and was Following his release, Schmidt remained bitterly hostile to those German officers who had co-operated with the Soviets in the National Committee for a Free Germany. On 30 January, Paulus informed Hitler that his men were only hours from collapse. He served in various staff positions for over a decade (192133). Hitler for permission for Paulus to. This decision to stand firm in a "hedgehog" defence sealed Sixth Army's fate. [18], Paulus, a Roman Catholic, was opposed to suicide. Paulus did not request to evacuate the city when the counter-offensive began. General Kurt Zeitzler, chief of the Army General Staff, was in a panic because hundreds of Soviet tanks had just smashed through the Romanian Third Army's lines northeast of Stalingrad, threatening communication and supply lines to the German Sixth Army. On December 18, the 4th Mechanized Corps which had particularly distinguished itself in the fighting here was awarded the title of Guards Corps. Panzer Korps, - Armee As a result of the talks, the southern pocket of German troops, commanded by General Roske, was to capitulate. In deciding to promote him, Hitler noted that there was no known record of a Prussian or German field marshal ever having surrendered. Arthur Schmidt (25 October 1895 5 November 1987) was an officer in the German military from 1914 to 1943. Climbing out of the cellar, I stood dumbfounded. In dieser Funktion wurde er am 1. A candle-end was burning on the table, illuminating an accordion lying on the couch. The battle ended in disaster for the Wehrmacht when Soviet forces encircled the Germans within the city, leading to the ultimate death or capture of most of 265,000 6th Army personnel, their Axis allies and collaborators. I had the official seal with me. No sensible person can understand why Dr. Adenauer, under American influence, strongly opposes exploiting the opportunities for the resumption of economic and cultural relations with the peoples of the East. The Germans started to withdraw, pursued by Malinovskys 2nd Guards Army which had begun a counterattack on December 24. The tanks opened up their devastating fire and the assault rifles of the Hitlerite infantry stuttered and rattled. The Red Army fighters looked fresh and wore warm winter uniforms. with these words he opened the door and a Soviet general and his interpreter entered the room.
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