Memoirs of a hero of Stalingrad. Great Victory. Truth Wars Memories of participants in street fighting in Stalingrad
In the early 70s, in late autumn, when the first snow had already fallen, I had to visit Aktobe and the region. My job was to improve the security of thermo-AGC cables on the KM-5D highway. RCRM-3 UKRM-10 was located in Aktyubinsk. I spent the night in a village that had the good name Blagodarny, given, probably, in honor of the fact that a state farm was located here, providing the regional center with agricultural products. The state farm was located 30 km from Aktyubinsk. This is also where the RCRM facility was located. There was a decent hotel at the site where you could relax and cook dinner.
One evening at the hotel I had to meet with an engineer from Kuibyshev, who had arrived on a business trip to resolve some issues at the Bukhara-Ural RRL. The engineer turned out to be an experienced man, a retired colonel, about 50 years old, tall, lean, with a military bearing. There was no TV in the hotel, and the evening time with a new acquaintance was spent talking about work, about what was in our sphere of interests. He and I worked in the same specialized enterprises.
Gradually the conversation turned to the war in which my interlocutor was a participant. Of everything he told that evening, I remember two episodes,
terrifying the situation in which my comrade found himself in the first days of his participation in the war.
I know that participants in the war do not really like to talk about difficult, tragic episodes, but, apparently, after a certain time, some
Some of them still decide to tell something of what they experienced for the edification of us who did not participate in wars, so that we know at least a little what war is.
The war for him began in Stalingrad. He arrived in Stalingrad at the height of the battles for the city in a group of young lieutenants who had just graduated from the communications school and were not even twenty years old. They were assigned to the headquarters of the 62nd Army, commanded by Lieutenant General V.I. Chuikov. The position of the army was critical; it was blocked by the Nazis on the western side and the Volga on the east.
The main task was to keep the city in their hands and prevent the Germans from reaching the Volga, where river transport communications were concentrated, ensuring the transportation of oil from the Caucasus to the unoccupied territory of the country, and supplying the front and the country with oil products. In those years, Baku fields were the only sources of petroleum products. The army headquarters was located in underground premises on the high slopes of the right bank of the Volga. The task of the young officers was to provide communications between the headquarters and the military units of the besieged army.
In the very first days, a tragic event occurred in a group of young signalmen. One of the lieutenants was unable to establish timely communication with one of the army units that had been interrupted and, by order of the commander, was court-martialed. The trial was quick and the lieutenant was sentenced to death. The execution took place here, at the army headquarters, on the slope of the steep bank of the Volga in front of the formation
his comrades.
In front of them stood a young, handsome young man, their comrade, without a cap, with an unbuttoned tunic, without a belt, with a completely confused, pale and understanding face. He, a former schoolboy, voluntarily wrote a statement
to the front in the hope of protecting his homeland from enemy invasion, he was subjected to the most severe, deadly punishment. The execution was carried out by the headquarters guards, consisting of fighters of heroic physique, beautifully, warmly dressed in white sheepskin coats, armed with machine guns.
The life of their comrade was so absurdly interrupted during takeoff. Where are you, fathers?
commanders? “Servant to the Tsar, father to the soldiers,” said Lermontov. He was a servant, but did not become a father. Although I will say that after many years it is difficult to give any assessment of these actions and events.
The veteran, who went through fire and copper pipes, spoke bitterly about this tragic incident. He knew the mother of this young man, and she knew that they were together, but he could not tell the truth about the death of her son.
But a person cannot carry this terrible secret within himself all his life, and perhaps I was one of the few to whom he was able to pour out his mental pain.
The second episode from the service of the narrator himself. I received an order to establish contact with the commander of a tank brigade, which was transported at night from the left bank of the Volga to the location of the 62nd Army and was about to go on the attack. With a reel on his back, on a dark, early, cold morning, he made his way to the location of a tank brigade.
The tanks were in full readiness. How to find a brigade commander's tank? The crews are not very willing to respond to requests to report this. Finally I got to the commander's tank. The commander did not immediately open the hatch. I called the commander, the commander answered the phone. “I’m listening, Comrade General.” - “Well, are you ready?” - "Yes!" - "Well, yes-
wow!” The commander hit the pipe with force against the tank's hull and slammed the hatch. The tanks launched an attack from which there was no return. The commander knew this, the commander knew this. The lieutenant frantically grabbed the broken tube, fortunately the wires were not broken, and reported on the completion of the task.
To imagine the situation in which the Battle of Stalinrad took place, I read the 4th volume, dedicated to this event, of the 12-volume edition “Wreath of Glory” with the works and memoirs of the participants in this battle. 653 pages of neat print with photographs. There is no historical chronology of co-
life, military leaders, writers, and ordinary participants speak.
I quote a poem by an ordinary participant in the Battle of Stalingrad, poet Semyon Gudzenko, who, unfortunately, lived a short life. (1922 – 1953). Poems written in 1942. In my opinion, these are the most powerful poems published in this book.
Before the attack
When they go to death, they sing,
And before that you can cry.
After all, the most terrible hour in battle is
an hour of waiting for an attack.
The snow is full of mines all around
And turned black from mine dust.
A breakup and a friend dies.
And that means death passes by.
Now it's my turn.
I'm the only one being hunted.
Damn the forty-first year -
You, infantry frozen in the snow.
I feel like I'm a magnet
That I attract mines.
There's a burst and the lieutenant wheezes.
And death passes by again.
But we can no longer wait.
And he leads us through the trenches
A numb enmity
a hole in the neck with a bayonet.
The fight was short.
And then
drank ice-cold vodka
And picked it out with a knife
From under the nails
I am someone else's blood.
A little information about the Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad began on July 17, 1942. The number of Soviet troops was 547 thousand people. The enemy outnumbered the Russian forces in personnel by 1.7 times; in artillery – 1.3 times, in aircraft – more than 2 times. The fighting in Stalingrad itself lasted 143 days, from September 13 to February 2, 1943. During 125 days of fierce fighting at the Battle of Stalingrad, the Red Army
lost 643,800 people, including 323,800 killed, captured and missing, 1,426 tanks and self-propelled artillery units, 12,137 guns and mortars, 2,063 combat aircraft. 32 divisions, 3 brigades were completely destroyed. During the liquidation of the encircled group from January 10 to February 2, 1943, over 91 thousand people were captured, including 2,500 officers and 24 generals. This was the first mass capture of the Nazis. During the Battle of Stalingrad, Wehrmacht troops lost about 1.3 million people.
From the book "Farewell to Copper Veins"
Reviews
Good afternoon
To the last one, about “a little information”. Wikipedia says the opposite about the numbers and weapons of the parties:
"Germany[edit | edit wiki text]
Army Group B. The 6th Army (commander - F. Paulus) was allocated for the attack on Stalingrad. It included 13 divisions, which numbered about 270 thousand people, 3 thousand guns and mortars, and about 700 tanks. Intelligence activities in the interests of the 6th Army were carried out by Abwehrgruppe 104.
The army was supported by the 4th Air Fleet (commanded by Colonel General Wolfram von Richthofen), which had up to 1,200 aircraft (the fighter aircraft aimed at Stalingrad, in the initial stage of the battle for this city, consisted of about 120 Messerschmitt Bf.109F- fighter aircraft 4/G-2 (Soviet and Russian sources give figures ranging from 100 to 150), plus about 40 obsolete Romanian Bf.109E-3).[source not specified 2453 days]
USSR[edit | edit wiki text]
Stalingrad Front (commander - S.K. Timoshenko, from July 23 - V.N. Gordov, from August 13 - Colonel General A.I. Eremenko). It included the Stalingrad garrison (10th division of the NKVD), the 62nd, 63rd, 64th, 21st, 28th, 38th and 57th combined arms armies, the 8th air army (Soviet fighter aviation at the beginning of the battle here consisted of 230-240 fighters, mainly Yak-1) and the Volga military flotilla - 37 divisions, 3 tank corps, 22 brigades, which numbered 547 thousand people, 2200 guns and mortars, about 400 tanks, 454 aircraft, 150-200 long-range bombers and 60 air defense fighters"
As you can see, the Soviet Union was superior to Nazi Germany, and THIS is precisely the greatest merit!
I assume that you can answer people like me that “it’s also written on the fence!” But about the dead Soviet, forgive me not only Russian, soldiers, the same Wikipedia says something different:
"The total losses of the Red Army in the Stalingrad defensive and offensive operation amounted to 1,129,619 people, including 478,741 irrevocable, of which 323,856 in the defensive phase of the battle and 154,885 in the offensive phase, 1,426 tanks, 12,137 guns and mortars, 2,063 aircraft."
THIS victory was achieved with a LOT OF HUMAN BLOOD...
Illustration copyright AFP
“It was difficult to breathe there because of the construction dust and stuffiness, and I often complained to my mother about the suffocating and foul smell of a rotting body,” Eduard Ochagavia recalls his childhood in Stalingrad. “On the road, bloody corpses of Red Army soldiers and German soldiers with their legs and arms torn off were lying everywhere,” says Eduard’s sister Natalia (Tala).
Their father, an American engineer of Spanish-Basque origin, Lawrence Ochagavia, was invited to Soviet Russia in 1923 to participate in the industrialization of the country. Until the start of the war, he worked at the first plant of this type in the USSR - the Stalingrad Tractor Plant (STZ). In the 30s, he was awarded the title of “production shock worker” and the diploma of “Hero of Labor”.
The Battle of Stalingrad, one of the largest battles of World War II, began in July 1942 and ended on February 2, 1943.
Eduard OchagAVia hosted the “Your Health” program on the BBC Russian Service for more than 20 years under the pseudonym Eddie Lawrence. We present the story of Edward and his sister about those terrible days.
Illustration copyright From the archive of Eduard Ochagavia Image caption Edward's father Lawrence Ochagavia at work at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant- "Forgotten" Americans in the USSR
Failed evacuation
Already in July 1942, there were sporadic raids and bombings of the city - mainly industrial enterprises. Lulled by Soviet propaganda about the power of the Red Army and "Stalin's falcons" in the sky, the residents of Stalingrad did not believe that the German fascists would be able to reach the city on the Volga. There was no organized mass evacuation of the civilian population. In a hurry, they began to evacuate the equipment of industrial enterprises, and forgot about the people. Somewhere in early August 1942, they realized about the people and began to hastily prepare for the evacuation of the families of STZ employees, but it was too late.
Illustration copyright From the archive of Eduard Ochagavia Image caption Conveyor of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, where Eduard's father workedMy first personal acquaintance with the war occurred in early August 1942.
This was due to the failed evacuation of STZ families from the city. The Germans learned about a train being prepared on the outskirts of Stalingrad to evacuate our families and began bombing the railway tracks and the train of our train. In panic, people began to jump out of the cars and seek refuge in the open steppe.
Illustration copyright Bundesarchiv Bild Image caption Photo from the German Federal Archives: residents of Stalingrad leaving the cityI remember how my father, mother and grandmother, under fire from German planes, looked in the steppe for any shelter from fighter bullets. My father and his friends at the plant soon saw a small beam and began to cover it with some kind of boards, plant branches and tumbleweed bushes - a dry steppe shrub of a spherical shape. The family sat down in this ravine, and they placed me between my mother’s legs.
Suddenly, on a low-level flight, a German fighter began to approach us. The mother shouted: “Edik, close your eyes!” and covered my face with her hand. Being a curious child, through my mother’s fingers I saw a fighter plane flying very low with a pilot wearing safety glasses. Above us came the sound of an aircraft engine and the muffled chatter of a fighter's machine gun. The bullets whistled past. The plane made several more passes at our shelter, then everything became quiet. We left the beam and headed back to our apartment in the STZ village.
Illustration copyright Keystone/Getty ImagesLooking back, we saw burning train cars, torn rails and a smoking, destroyed train.
In August, the weather in Stalingrad is usually sunny and warm. The sky is clear and pale blue. On days when there were no bombings, I loved to sit by the window in our apartment on the third floor and watch the air battles between our and German aircraft. I especially remember one such battle in the August sky over the Stalingrad Tractor Plant. From an airfield near the city, three biplanes, shaped like bookcases, took off into the air - that’s what we called such planes back then.
They slowly approached the three shiny spots of German planes. Soon, anti-aircraft guns began to boom from the garden near our house, and “cotton balls” appeared in the blue sky in the area of the planes - the results of the explosion of anti-aircraft shells, and the sounds of light pops began to be heard from these explosions.
During one of these battles, a dark smoking point appeared in the sky. She began to spin in a spiral, leaving a long tail of smoke behind her, and then disappeared into the nearby forest. Two ambulances left our village - covered green lorries with red crosses on board. With the sound of bells, the cars headed into the forest, from where clouds of smoke from the fallen plane rose into the sky.
It seemed that the Volga was burning
My sister Natalia (Tala), who was already 14 years old in 1942, remembers very well how, from August 23, bombs began to fall on the city almost every day, that is, fascist aviation began to carry out so-called carpet bombings with the aim of completely capturing the city.
Tala recalls in her memoirs how the Germans bombed oil storage facilities not far from their home. Everything around was engulfed in fire and black smoke. The fire spread to the Volga. Burning oil and fuel oil slid down the steep banks into the river, and it seemed as if the Volga itself was burning.
The Germans bombed the river crossing every day, and our sappers restored the crossing at night and transported artillery pieces, military equipment and ammunition along it. At night, people flee the city on barges and across the crossing to the left bank of the river. And the next morning after another bombing, the corpses of soldiers and civilians, bags, suitcases and personal belongings of people are floating in the river.
My sister later told me how one of her neighbors decided to take a risk and move to the other side of the Volga. She left with her son and took with her a beautiful hunting dog. It is unknown what happened to the neighbor and her son, but the dog ran back home.
At the end of the summer of 1942, the Germans captured most of the city, there were street battles, and only the coastal areas of the Volga, where the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, the Barricades plant and the Red October metallurgical plant were located, remained not yet captured by the German army.
Illustration copyright Keystone/Getty ImagesAt the beginning of September, most of the city was in ruins due to systematic “carpet” and other bombings; people huddled in basements; the city had no water supply, electricity, gas or heating. Lawrence and my family, during a time calm from the bombing, sat at the primus stove in the bedroom, where my grandmother was preparing some kind of soup, which she called “grout.” It was some kind of cloudy water, odorless and tasteless, the recipe for which you will not find in any cookbook. According to my grandmother, cunning people around the corner on the street sometimes offered “beef” cutlets, but she always made a strange face when she talked about it and hinted at the meat of human corpses. By autumn, all types of domestic animals had disappeared in the city.
There was no salt, bread, sugar or matches
During the days of the bombing, we did not get out of the bomb shelter - the basement in our house, which was always crowded with children, wounded military personnel and sick local residents. Among the wounded, I often saw children I knew from kindergarten. They lay on shelves with bandaged arms, legs or bloody bandages on their heads.
It was difficult to breathe there because of the construction dust and stuffiness, and I often complained to my mother about the suffocating and foul smell of a rotting body. There were no traces of any antibiotics in those days.
The most scarce goods at that time were salt, bread, sugar and... matches. True, the people quickly adapted to producing fire using Stone Age methods: a wick made of cotton fabric or some other dry fabric was inserted into a small-diameter metal tube. This tube was pressed against one flint stone, and a spark was struck with another flint, which ignited the wick.
In September we lost contact with Tala and her mother. As it turned out later, the Germans captured their part of the city, and we did not know what happened to them.
Mines began to fly into our kitchen, and when one mine flew into one window and exploded in the opposite corner of the kitchen, Lawrence said in broken Russian: “Knock it off, the German will kill us here, we must kill it, on the other side, in the steppe.”
In mid-September 1942, we left our apartment, taking with us only the most necessary things, and began to make our way through the trenches to the crossing on the Volga.
There was a real pandemonium at the crossing: soldiers with weapons, some cannons, machine guns, the wounded, the sick, local residents with suitcases and knapsacks, children.
There are explosions, screams, swearing, the smell of gunpowder and burning all around. From time to time, columns of water rise in the river from shell explosions. In this chaos, my father somehow managed to persuade the driver of a military vehicle to take us with him to a barge that was heading to the left bank. Despite the shelling of German artillery and aviation, we were lucky to reach the opposite bank of the Volga alive and go into the steppe.
From that moment on, we completely lost hope of contacting Tala and her mother and considered them dead or missing during the Battle of Stalingrad.
Illustration copyright From the archive of Eduard Ochagavia Image caption Drawing of Edward on a piece of newspaperHaving reached the left bank of the Volga, we made a long journey along the Volga steppe to the north in a two-wheeled wheelbarrow, built by my father from boards and wheels lying in the steppe on the left bank. First we got to the village of Novaya Poltavka, where we spent the autumn and entire winter of 1942.
The winter of 1942-43 in these parts was very cold (-40 C), hungry and lousy - in the literal sense of the word. Local residents in the villages of the Volga steppe were wary of the “Stalingrad refugees,” claiming that “they are all typhoid,” spreading all sorts of diseases, and sometimes robbing the local population.
The situation improved somewhat only after the family moved from Novaya Poltavka in the spring of 1943 to Neu-Kolonia, a settlement of the Volga Germans, from which the NKVD expelled all residents by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR back in September-October 1941. For our family, the epic “Battle of Stalingrad” ended here, in the settlement of Ney-Kolonia at the beginning of 1943.
"Poof-poof-kaput!" From the memories of sister Tala
Judging by my sister’s recollections, her suffering in September and the subsequent autumn and winter of 1942-43 was even more terrible. At the beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad, she and her mother, like us, spent most of their time in bomb shelters of various dilapidated houses in their area of the city.
In one of the basements, a bomb penetrated all floors and fell on their bed with their belongings, but did not explode. There was panic in the basement: no one knew what to do, they had to spend the whole night in the company of a gloomy surprise.
Illustration copyright From the archive of Eduard Ochagavia Image caption Eduard's sister Tala in a white beret with a friend in StalingradAnd the next morning, the metal doors of the basement suddenly opened and German soldiers, as she writes, with “sleeves rolled up and machine guns in their hands,” burst into the bomb shelter and began shouting “Aus, Aus” and drove everyone out into the street.
There were battles on the street, “there was smoke all around, screams and groans of the wounded, explosions of mines and shells.”
Confused, they ran towards the STZ, which, according to rumors, the Germans had not yet taken.
As my sister writes, bloody corpses of Red Army soldiers and German soldiers with their legs and arms torn off were strewn everywhere along the road.
They managed to take refuge in the basement of the “professor’s house” on the western outskirts of the city, but soon German soldiers found them there too, and drove everyone to the surface, organized them into a column and, under escort, drove them along with Russian prisoners of war towards the city of Kalach-on-Don .
They did not reach Kalach, but stopped for a rest in the town of Gumrak, about 10-12 km from Stalingrad. Here Tala and her mother and the Shemberg family took a nap under a tree, and when they woke up, they saw that the column had already left, and they were left alone, abandoned in the Don steppe near the village of Gumrak. At the end of September there were heavy rains in these places.
After some time, a German officer who appeared from a camouflaged beam-dugout approached the confused group of refugees and offered to go down into the beam, declaring that otherwise they would die here under the mortar fire of the Russian army, they say, “poof-poof, kaput” for you here.
Refugees in a dugout
So my sister Tala and her mother ended up together with Russian prisoners of war and the German soldiers guarding them in a dugout near the village of Gumrak. There they spent the terrible winter of 1942-43.
As Tala recalls, the frosts were terrible; in the dugout there was only a stove, in which a log found in the steppe was smoldering. Mostly German soldiers were basking around her. There was no water, so the Germans forced Tala to collect snow with a sapper shovel into a broken trough, and then melt the snow somewhere in the extracted bucket and thus get “drinking water.”
Illustration copyright From the archive of Eduard Ochagavia Image caption Eduard’s sister Tala lived in a dugout like thisLater, new groups of German soldiers began to arrive at the dugout and make additional demands on the Russian refugee women: to clean the dugout from debris and dirt, to “darn and sew up” their torn socks, to wash their underwear, but with what and how - they were not interested. .
They often accompanied their demands with threats; one German even threatened to punish Tala with the Finn because she was too obstinate.
There was no firewood in the steppe, sometimes in the trenches she found boards and sticks, and with this she lit the stove-stove to evaporate their linen. The Germans gave a piece of bread for work.
And again "Pooh-pooh-kaput"
In December-January 1942 there was terrible cold and hunger. There were lice that lived not only on linen, but even on outer clothing. Bombs and mines were constantly exploding around and, judging by the behavior of the Germans, it was felt that they were surrounded. The encirclement ring was shrinking. Their dugout and all those nearby were filled with retreating German soldiers. Tala and her mother were afraid that the Germans would kick them out of the dugout, which would mean certain death under shells and in 40-degree frost.
One day at the end of January, one German even threatened Tala with his pistol - he put the barrel of the pistol to his head and shouted that tomorrow the Russians would come and - pointing to the refugees - they would destroy all of you: "pukh-pukh-kaput."
In those January days, everyone was starving: both refugees and Germans. There was no food, German aircraft did not reach the Gumrak area, food supplies stopped. There were rumors that there were cases of cannibalism in the Romanian army, which fought on the side of the Germans.
Illustration copyright From the archive of Eduard Ochagavia Image caption Eduard's sister Tala kept the German spoon as a souvenirOn one of the first days of February, all the Germans, as if in alarm, jumped out of the dugout. Only their backpacks remained. And suddenly there was an unusual silence: the shell explosions died down and even the Katyushas fell silent. In this silence, as Tala writes, strange distant sounds were heard, reminiscent of the cry of a child: “ooh-ah, ooh-ah.” The sounds were getting closer, and we began to clearly distinguish drawn-out shouts: “Hurray-Hurray-Hurray”! We sat in the dugout, silent as mice.
Suddenly a German soldier with a machine gun ran into our dugout, turned to us and exclaimed “metchen”, threw the machine gun at the entrance and lay down on the ground. A minute later, a voice in Russian was heard from outside: “Who’s there?” Tala’s mother replied: “There are Russians and non-Russians here.” A Red Army soldier in a white camouflage robe over a sheepskin coat with a machine gun burst into the dugout, saw the German and ordered him to stand up. He replied: “Nicht ferstein.” “Nothing, now you’ll understand!” - the Red Army soldier answered, took him out of the dugout and immediately shot him. Then he returned to us, gave us a loaf of bread, jumped out of the dugout and ran on...
Occasionally, distant cannonade could still be heard, and Tala and her mother continued to live in their now own dugout until April.
Some fPhotos provided by Andrew Shepherd, editor of the East-West Review
Requisites
I was a member of the British Communist Party until it collapsed in 1991.
I want to say that I do not consider myself a historian. I was born into a poor working class family. I received only a state education and today I do not speak my native language...
The main part of my story will be devoted to how I, a boy from Schleswig Holstein, ended up taking part in the “Napoleonic” defeat in Stalingrad. Sometimes I wonder why history doesn't teach us? Napoleon attacked Russia in 1812. His army of 650,000 invaded from East Prussia and began to advance towards Smolensk and Moscow, but was forced to withdraw. The Russian army pursued the retreating and when the French returned to Paris, their army numbered only 1,400 soldiers. Of course, not all 650,000 were soldiers, and only half of them were French, the rest were Germans and Poles. To many uneducated peasants, joining Napoleonic army seemed like a great idea. We, too, during the attack on the Soviet Union according to the plan of the operation code-named Barbarossa, thought that we were the strongest and smartest, but we know what came of it!
I was born in 1922 in Schleswig Holstein. My father was a laborer. Until 1866, Schleswig Holstein belonged to Denmark. Bismarck and the Prussian Army declared war on Denmark, after which Schleswig Holstein was ceded to the Germans. During my service in Russia, the temperature on the coldest day dropped to -54 degrees. I then regretted that Denmark did not win that war, and I had to go with the Germans to Russia and suffer from this terrible cold in 1942. In the end, despite our nationality, we are all one big family. I know this now, but I didn’t understand it then.
1930s in Germany
Until I was ten (from 1922 to 1932) I lived in the Weimar Republic, which emerged after the overthrow of the Kaiser in 1919. I experienced this when I was a little boy. Obviously, I didn’t understand what was happening at all. My parents loved me and did their best, but I remember those troubled times - strikes, shootings, blood in the streets, recession, 7 million unemployed. I lived in a working-class neighborhood near Hamburg, where people had a very hard time. There were demonstrations with red flags, in which women carried their children, pushed baby carriages and chanted: “Give us bread and work for us,” while workers shouted “Revolution” and “Lenin.”
My father was left-wing and explained a lot to me. The German ruling class was frightened by the events taking place and decided to do something. I saw street fights from which I was forced to run, but they seemed to me to be part of ordinary life.
On Christmas Eve 1932 I was 10 years old. A little later, on January 30, 1933, a bomb exploded in the Reichstag. Soon Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. My mother kept asking how Hindenburg allowed this to happen, because we knew that the Nazis were scumbags - a party of racists who only talked about revenge and beatings.
It all seemed interesting and exciting to me, even though my mother told me that they were just bandits. I constantly saw such impressive stormtroopers in brown uniforms marching through the streets of cities. As young men, we sang their songs and walked proudly after them. In the last three columns, at the end of the marches, garbage men arrived and if people on the sidewalks did not salute the flag, they forced them. Later I joined the Hitler Youth, and I was ashamed to show myself to my mother.
Hitler was appointed to suppress the working class.
Hitler became Reich Chancellor. Ten years ago no one had heard of him. The name "Nazi" (derived from the National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany) attracted a sufficient number of people who were disillusioned with traditional political parties. Some were sincere socialists who were willing to give Hitler a chance, believing that he could not be worse than the old parties. When Hitler and his henchmen gave a speech, it always concerned the return of Germany to its former greatness, attacks on the Jews as inferior human beings who needed to be dealt with. Consequently, establishing order in the world became the God-given mission of the German people, whether they wanted it or not.
There were no elections. Hitler was appointed overnight. Elections were abolished in order to give power to Hitler. For what? The Nazis were not a traditional political party. So who gave them the power? Hindenburg represented the ruling class - the military, arms manufacturers, Ruhr barons, bankers, clergymen and landowning aristocrats. When Hitler came to power, his father said that he was only a servant of the rich. Now I know he was right. They gave Hitler the power to crush the rebellion of the working class against poor living conditions. Hitler was not even a native of Germany. He was an army corporal, a vagabond from Vienna. He had no education, he simply called for revenge. How did it become possible for a man like Hitler to come to civil and military power in such a highly developed and educated country as Germany? He couldn't do this alone. His party was nothing. Behind this were the customers who did this in an effort to prevent a repeat of the Russian revolution.
Hitler had executive power, but was not a dictator, but only a figurehead. He was not smart enough to manage such a complex mechanism as the German state.
The Nazis created concentration camps. My father always said that workers need to fight for their rights, because the scoundrels employ us only to make a profit, and the only way to scare them is with an uprising, which could develop into a revolution. One day, storm troops arrived in two cars at 3 a.m. and took away our neighbor, the chairman of the trade union. He was taken to a concentration camp. My mother told me about this, and from then on my father told me to remain silent about his views, otherwise he would go to a concentration camp. The arrest of one person from our neighborhood served as a good tactic to intimidate and intimidate all its residents. I was 11 or 12 then and I thought he was just an idiot, but I knew everything. My father thought that nothing could be done, and he had no other choice but silence. The communists were the first to be taken to concentration camps, and then even progressive priests and everyone who spoke out against the regime began to be arrested. Once you open your mouth, you disappear. Nazi power was based on fear and terror.
Hitler Youth
I ended up in the Hitler Youth. A law was passed allowing only one youth organization to exist, and the youth group at my church became the Hitler Youth. I liked him. All my friends were in it. My father said that I should stay there because under the circumstances it would be worse for both of us if I left her. When I left school at 15, my father, a railway worker, got me an apprenticeship with a mechanic on the railway. The first question on the job application was: “When did you join the Hitler Youth?” If you had never been a member of this organization, most likely you would not have been hired - this way there was indirect pressure (not through the law) to force young people to join the Hitler Youth. But I have to admit that I liked it there. We were poor, I had few clothes, and my mother sewed them for me. And in the Hitler Youth they gave me a brown shirt. My father would never have bought it for me, since we had no money, but at the next meeting they gave me a package, which I took home. There were two shirts in it. My father hated the uniform, but he had to watch me wear it. He understood what this meant. We Hitler Youth marched proudly with drums and swastikas, accompanied by fanfare. All this took place in an atmosphere of strict discipline.
I liked the camps, which were located in beautiful places, such as Thuringen Castle. We young men now have the opportunity to play a lot of sports. When we wanted to play football on the street in our poor neighborhood, no one could afford to buy a ball, but in the Hitler Youth we had it all at our disposal. Where did the money come from for this? Most likely from funds donated by weapons manufacturers. Hitler was given the power to prepare for a war that could save Germany from economic collapse.
I remember the time when there were 7 million unemployed. Eighteen months after Hitler came to power, there were very few people left who were not employed. The construction of a fleet began at the docks - warships - the battleship Bismarck, the cruiser Eugen, submarines. In Germany there was even a shortage of workers. People liked it, but my father said that if all the work was just preparing for war, then something was clearly wrong.
In the Hitler Youth we learned to shoot and throw grenades, attack and occupy. We played grand war games. We were taught around the fires, where we sang Nazi songs: “Let Jewish blood drip from our knives” and others. Our parents were shocked by our descent into barbarism. But I didn’t doubt anything. We were being prepared for war.
A few years later, the Germans occupied vast territories 4-5 times the size of Great Britain. These territories were held due to the fact that German youth were trained in Hitler's camps. I believed that we Germans could fix the mess the world was in.
In a tank division
At the age of 18, I was drafted and sent to the panzer division. I was very proud that at such an early age I was selected for the tank division. The exercises were very difficult. I came home in my uniform and thought everything was going great. Our instructors told us that they would knock individualism out of us and create a Nazi socialist spirit in its place. They succeeded. When we approached Stalingrad, I still believed in it.
Our officer corps in the Wehrmacht consisted almost entirely of landowning aristocrats with the prefix “von”. War propaganda was constantly intensifying. We learned that “we” had to do something about Poland before they attacked us, to stand up for the free world. Now history has repeated itself with Bush and Blair. We attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. When the bomb exploded in Berlin, we were told that it was an act of terrorism committed against us, freedom-loving people. The same thing is being said now, when we are being prepared for a new war. The same atmosphere of lies and misinformation.
I was called up in 1941 when Operation Barbarossa began on June 22. I was on an exercise at the time. When war was declared against the Soviet Union, the tank division was in France. At first, the German army and its discipline were far superior to the armies of other countries from a military point of view. Our troops entered the Soviet Union relatively easily. My 22nd Panzerdivision was transported there by train only in the winter of 1941. In France the weather was tolerable and the first part of the trip was pleasant despite the time of year. It was colder in Germany and snowing in Poland. In the Soviet Union everything was white with snow.
Then we believed that we should accept it as an honor to die fighting for the Fatherland. We passed through a city in the Soviet Union called Tanenburg. Earlier there was a battle involving tanks. Before us stood a picture that 18-year-old people were not ready for. We didn't know what we were going through, just that we had to follow orders. I began to think: despite the fact that most of the burned tanks were Russian, one of them was German, just like mine, and I could not understand how the tanker managed to survive, because it is very difficult to get out of a burning tank. But then I realized that he probably didn’t get out, but died right in the tank.
For the first time I realized that I didn't want to die. It’s interesting to talk about great battles, what are they like in reality? My National Socialist spirit will not shield me from bullets. This is how the first doubts overtook me.
We entered Crimea as part of Manstein's 11th Army. The offensive began in late winter/early spring. I went through my first battle. We won. But one day, while I was driving a tank, a sobering event occurred. I was taught to never stop him. Stop it and you're dead. I approached a narrow bridge that needed to be crossed. As I approached, I saw three Russian soldiers carrying their wounded comrade, accompanied by German guards. When they saw me, they abandoned the wounded man. I stopped so as not to run him over. My commander ordered to continue moving. I had to move the wounded man, and he died. That's how I became a killer. I considered it normal to kill in battle, but not defenseless people. This gave me doubts. But constantly hesitating about this can drive you crazy. After the battle we were given medals. It was wonderful. We took Crimea. Victory over the enemy army, capturing villages - all this seemed very exciting. Then we were transferred by train to the mainland to join the units of General Paulus. This was in the spring of 1942. I took part in the advance to the Volga. We beat Tymoshenko. I personally participated in many battles. Then we moved to Stalingrad.
Along the way, from time to time political commissars gathered us for operational reports. Our commissar was the major of our unit. We sat on the grass, and he was in the center. He said there was no need to stand in his presence. He asked: “Why do you think you are in Russia?” I began to think where he was trying to catch us. Someone said: “To defend the honor of our Fatherland.” The major said that this is nonsense that Goebbels is telling, and we are not fighting for slogans, but for real things. He said that when we defeat the proletarian army of scum, our battles in the south will end. Where do we go next? The answer was - to oil deposits in the Caucasus and Caspian Sea. After? We had no idea. Let's say if we moved about 700 km south, we would end up in Iraq. At the same time, Rommel, fighting in the Nile Delta region, would move east and also enter Iraq. Without capturing these important oil resources, he said, Germany could not be a leading power. And now, looking at the current situation, everything again comes down to oil.
“Shocking impressions” of communicating with a communist prisoner of war
At some point I was seriously wounded. I ended up in the hospital, where doctors determined that I was no longer fit for active combat.
I will now quote excerpts from my book “Through Hell for Hitler” (Spellmount, Staplehurst, 1990, p. 77-81), a new edition of which should be published soon:
“We were taken by ambulance train to the hospital in Stalino. Despite the fact that at first my wound did not want to heal, I liked the hospital. A few weeks away from the front seemed like a gift from above.
Most of the staff at this hospital, including surgeons, were Russian. The care for the patients was quite satisfactory by war standards, and when it was time to be discharged, the Russian doctor said goodbye to me with an insidious grin: “Come on, go further to the East, young man, after all, this is what you came here for!” I didn’t even understand whether I liked this remark and whether I even wanted to go further to the East. After all, I was not yet twenty, I wanted to live and did not want to die at all.
Although my condition was satisfactory for discharge from the hospital, I was still not ready to participate in hostilities as part of my division, which was on the front line and making its way towards Rostov. Therefore, I was sent to a unit providing security for a prisoner of war camp somewhere between the Donets and the Dnieper. A large camp was set up in the open air in the steppe. The kitchen, storage rooms and the like were located under a canopy, while countless prisoners of war had to take shelter with whatever was available. Our rations were quite meager, but the prisoners had it even worse. It must be said that the summer days were quite fine, and the Russians, accustomed to a hard life, tolerated these terrible conditions well. The border of the camp was a round ditch dug along the perimeter of the camp, to which prisoners were not allowed to approach. Inside the camp, on one side, there were collective farm premises. All of them were surrounded by barbed wire with one guarded entrance. I and a dozen other semi-invalids were assigned to guard the interior of the camp.
For most combat-ready soldiers, convoy service seemed a stultifying punishment. In addition, it was a very boring task, and everything that happened in the inner part of the collective farm seemed somewhat strange. The key to everything, I believe, was Hitler's infamous “commissar order,” according to which all captured political commissars (commissars) and other members of the Communist Party were to be shot. Thus, for the communists, the order meant the same thing as the “final solution” for the Jews. I think by that time most of us had come to terms with the fact that communism amounted to a crime, and communists were considered criminals, which freed us from any need to prove guilt within the framework of the law. It was then that the thought that I was guarding a camp specifically designed to destroy the “communist infection” overtook my consciousness.
Any prisoner of war who found himself on the territory of a collective farm was never released. I cannot say that they knew about the fate in store for them. Among the prisoners of war there were quite a lot of those who were betrayed by their own comrades from the outer part of the camp, but even in the most unconvincing cases, when the prisoners swore that they had never been members of the Communist Party, were not convinced communists and, moreover, always remained anti-communists - even in such cases they were not released from the camp. But our duties were limited exclusively to the armed protection of the territory, and everything was in charge here of representatives of the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD for short, under the command of an SS Sturmbannführer, which was equal to the rank of major in the Wehrmacht. In all cases, a formal investigation was first carried out, and after it execution, always in the same place - near the wall of a half-burnt hut, which was not visible from anywhere from the outside. The burial site, several long ditches, was located further out on the outskirts.
Having been steeped in the Nazi “school” in educational institutions and in the ranks of the Hitler Youth, this first impression of a direct meeting with real communists initially puzzled me. The prisoners brought here daily to the camp, either singly or in small groups, were not at all what I had imagined them to be. In fact, They were indeed different from the rest of the mass of prisoners in the outer part of the camp, who in their appearance and behavior were very similar to ordinary peasants in eastern Europe. What struck me most about the political instructors and members of the Communist Party was their inherent education and sense of self. I never, or almost never, saw them moan or complain, never ask for anything for themselves. When the hour of execution approached, and executions happened constantly, they accepted it with their heads held high. Almost everyone gave the impression of people who could be trusted without limit; I was sure that if I met them in peaceful conditions, they could well become my friends.
All the days were like one another. We either stood at the gate for several hours with a partner, or walked around alone with rifles loaded and ready to fire on our shoulders. Usually there were up to a dozen or a little more “visitors” under our care. They were kept in a cleared out pigsty, which in turn was surrounded by barbed wire, despite the fact that it was located in the interior of the camp. It was a prison within a prison that was also a prisoner. The security was organized in such a way that the prisoners had no chance of escaping, so we had little to worry about. Since we had to see them almost around the clock, we knew them all by sight and often even by name. It was we who accompanied them to where the “investigation” was taking place, and it was we who escorted them on their final journey to the place of execution.
One of the prisoners, thanks to what he had learned at school, spoke German quite well. I no longer remember his last name, but his name was Boris. Since I also spoke Russian quite well, although I distorted cases and declensions, we communicated without difficulty, discussing many topics. Boris was a lieutenant, a political instructor, about two years older than me. In the conversation it turned out that both he and I were studying to become a mechanic, he in the area of Gorlovka and Artemovsk at a large industrial complex, I in a railway workshop in Hamburg. During the offensive, we passed through his native Gorlovka. Boris was fair-haired, about eighty meters tall, with cheerful blue eyes, in which a good-natured sparkle flickered even in captivity. Often, especially in the late hours, I was drawn to him and wanted to talk. I kept calling him Boris, so he also asked me if he could call me by my name, at that moment we were amazed at how easily people can get along. We mostly talked about our families, school, places where we were born and where we learned our profession. I knew all his brothers and sisters by name, I knew how old they were, what his parents did, even some of their habits. Of course, he was terribly worried about their fate in the city occupied by the Germans, but he could not console him. He even told me their address and asked me, in case I happened to be in Gorlovka, to find them and tell them everything. “But what could I tell them?” I asked myself. I think we both understood perfectly well that I would never look for them, and his family would never know about the fate of their Boris. I also told him about my family and everything that was dear to me. I told him that I have a girlfriend whom I love, although there was nothing serious between us. Boris smiled knowingly and said that he also had a girlfriend, a student. At such moments it seemed to us that we were very close, but then the terrible consciousness came to us that between us there was an abyss, on one side of which I, a guard with a rifle, and on the other, he, my prisoner. I clearly understood that Boris would never be able to hug his girlfriend, but I didn’t know if Boris understood this. I knew that his only crime was that he was a military man, and a political commissar at that, and instinctively I felt that what was happening was very, very wrong.
Oddly enough, we practically did not discuss military service, and when it came to politics, he and I had no common ground, nor was there any common denominator to which our discussions could be brought. Despite the great human closeness in many ways, there was a bottomless chasm between us.
And then the last night came for Boris. I learned from our SD officers that he was to be shot tomorrow morning. In the afternoon he was summoned for interrogation, from which he returned beaten, with traces of bruises on his face. It looked like he had been hit in the side, but he didn't complain about anything, and I didn't say anything either, because there was no point in it. I didn't know if he realized that he was being prepared to be shot the next morning; I didn’t say anything either. But, being a fairly smart man, Boris probably understood what happened to those who were taken away and who never returned.
I took up my night post from two to four in the morning; the night was quiet and surprisingly warm. The air was filled with the sounds of the surrounding nature; in a pond located not far from the camp, one could hear the friendly croaking of frogs almost in unison. Boris sat on the straw by the pigsty, leaning his back against the wall, and played a tiny harmonica that easily fit unnoticed in his hand. This harmonica was the only thing left with him, because everything else was taken away during the first search. The melody he played this time was extremely beautiful and sad, a typical Russian song telling about the wide steppe and love. Then one of his friends told him to shut up, saying, “You’re not letting me sleep.” He looked at me, as if asking: should I continue playing or should I shut up? I shrugged my shoulders in response, he hid the instrument and said: “Nothing, let’s talk better.” I leaned against the wall, looked down at him and felt awkward because I didn’t know what to talk about. I was unusually sad, I wanted to behave as usual - in a friendly way and perhaps help with something, but how? I don’t even remember how it happened, but at some point he looked at me searchingly, and we started talking about politics for the first time. Perhaps, deep down in my soul, I myself wanted to understand at this late hour why he believed so passionately in the rightness of his cause, or, at least, to receive recognition that it was wrong, that he was disappointed in everything.
What about your world revolution now? - I asked. - Now it’s all over, and in general, this is a criminal conspiracy against peace and freedom and was so from the very beginning, wasn’t it?
The fact is that just at this time it seemed that Germany would inevitably win a brilliant victory over Russia. Boris was silent for a while, sitting on a sheaf of hay and playing with his harmonica in his hands. I would understand if he was angry with me. When he slowly stood up, came closer to me and looked me straight in the eyes, I noticed that he was still extremely worried. His voice, however, was calm, somewhat sad and full of bitterness from disappointment - no, not in his ideas, but in me.
Henry! - he said. - You told me a lot about your life, that you, like me, are from a poor family, from a family of workers. You are quite good-natured and not stupid. But, on the other hand, you are very stupid if life has taught you nothing. I understand that those who brainwashed you did a great job, and you thoughtlessly swallowed all this propaganda nonsense. And the saddest thing is that you allowed yourself to be instilled with ideas that directly contradict your own interests, ideas that turned you into an obedient, pathetic tool in their treacherous hands. The world revolution is part of the developing world history. Even if you win this war, which I seriously doubt, the revolution in the world cannot be stopped by military means. You have a powerful army, you can cause enormous damage to my Motherland, you can shoot many of our people, but you cannot destroy the idea! This movement, at first glance, is dormant and imperceptible, but it is there, and it will soon come forward proudly when all the poor and oppressed common people in Africa, in America, in Asia and in Europe awaken from their slumber and rise up. One day people will understand that the power of money, the power of capital not only oppresses and robs them, but at the same time devalues the human potential inherent in them, in both cases allowing them to be used only as a means of obtaining material gain, as if they were weak-willed weak figures, and then throws them away as unnecessary. Once people understand this, a small light will turn into a flame, these ideas will be picked up by millions and millions around the world, and will do whatever is needed in the name of humanity. And it will not be Russia that will do this for them, although it was the Russian people who were the first to throw off the chains of slavery. The people of the world will do this for themselves and their countries, they will rise up against their own oppressors in whatever way seems necessary and when the hour comes!
During his passionate speech, I could neither interrupt him nor contradict him. And although he spoke in a low voice, his words shocked me incredibly. No one had ever managed to touch the strings of my soul so deeply, I felt helpless and disarmed in the knowledge of what his words conveyed to me. And to deal me the final crushing blow, Boris pointed to my rifle and added that “this thing has no power against ideas.”
And if you think that you can now reasonably object to me,” he concluded, “then I ask you to do without all the meaningless slogans about the fatherland, freedom and God!
I almost suffocated from the rage that gripped me. The natural reaction was to put him in his place. But having come to my senses, I decided that he had only a few hours to live and for him this was probably the only way to speak out. I was soon to be relieved of my post. Not wanting to make farewell scenes and say neither “goodbye!” nor “Auf Wiedersehn” to him, I just looked him straight in the eyes, probably there was a certain mixture of anger and sympathy in my eyes, maybe he even managed to notice glimpses of humanity in him , after which he turned on his heels and slowly walked along the stables to where we were located. Boris didn’t even move, didn’t say a word and didn’t move while I was walking. But I knew for sure - I felt it - that he was constantly looking after me while I trudged along with my stupid rifle.
The first rays of the rising sun appeared on the horizon.
We guards also slept on the hay, and I always liked to come from my post, collapse and fall asleep. But that morning I had no time to sleep. Without even undressing, I lay on my back and looked at the slowly brightening sky. Restlessly tossing and turning in different directions, I felt sorry for Boris, and for myself too. I was unable to understand many things. After sunrise I heard a few shots, a short salvo, and it was all over.
I immediately jumped up and went to where I knew the graves had been prepared. It was a beautiful morning in all its summer splendor and beauty, the birds were singing, and everything was as if nothing had happened. I came across a sadly wandering firing squad with rifles on their shoulders. The soldiers nodded at me, apparently surprised that I had come. Two or maybe three prisoners were burying the bodies of those who had been shot. Besides Boris, there were three more bodies, and they had already been partially covered with earth. I could recognize Boris, his shirt was wrinkled, he was barefoot, but he was still wearing his leather belt, covered in blood stains. The prisoners looked at me in surprise, as if asking what I was doing here. The expression on their faces was sullen, but other than that, I could see fear and hatred in their eyes. I wanted to ask them what happened to Boris’s harmonica, whether it was taken from him before the execution, or whether it remained in his pocket. But I immediately abandoned this idea, thinking that the prisoners might suspect that I was going to rob the dead. Turning around, I walked towards the stables to finally fall asleep.
I was greatly relieved when I was soon deemed “fit to fight” and was to rejoin my division, which was fighting on many fronts. No matter how hard it was on the front line, at least there I was not haunted by maddening painful experiences, so I deceived my own conscience and reason.
My comrades were glad to see me back. The Volga was very close, and the Russians fought with all their valor, demonstrating everything they were capable of. Some of my close friends died in battle. Our company commander, Lieutenant Steffan, was shot in the head. No matter how sad it was to hear about the death of my friends, I still understood that this was war. But the execution of Boris did not fit into my head - why? It seemed to me like the crucifixion of Christ.
On the approaches to Stalingrad
We all hoped that the summer of 1942 would be great. We tried to squeeze the Red Army into a pincer movement, but the Russians always retreated. We thought it was because they were cowards, but we soon realized that this was not the case.
In the Donbass region we entered a city where there were many factories. By order of the Soviet government, they were dismantled into pieces and all equipment was moved east of the Urals. Mass production of T-34 tanks, the most successful tanks in world history, was established there. The T-34 dashed all our hopes of victory.
Our army included economic affairs officers who wore green uniforms. These officers were inspecting the factories, and I saw how upset they were to find that there was nothing left there. They expected to be able to take possession of all the equipment.
Before this I had never been to Stalingrad. We were unable to capture a single Russian soldier, as they literally disappeared from sight, forming partisan detachments. Foreign troops fought on our side, for example, soldiers from Romania. We used foreigners to guard the flanks behind Stalingrad, but our allies were not properly armed and their discipline was poor compared to our army, so we attacked them. Our unit was positioned behind the Romanians, and we fought with the Russians who had broken through the ranks of the Romanian soldiers. This was in November 1942. We felt something was wrong while standing on duty. The Russian T-34 was the best tank of the Second World War, I could recognize it by the sound of the diesel engine, and it seemed to me that I could hear a huge number of these tanks driving somewhere in the distance. We reported to the officers that the equipment was approaching. The officers told us that the Russians were practically finished, and we had nothing to fear.
As soon as we came into combat readiness, we realized that this was only the introduction to a grandiose action. The main part of it was ahead. The artillery fire stopped for a moment, and we heard the tanks start up. They began their attack early in the morning, turning on their headlights and firing at us. The tanks came for us. I remembered that officer who thought that it was one tank driving back and forth, but now there were hundreds of approaching vehicles ahead. There was a ravine between us. Russian tanks drove into it and immediately got out easily, and then I realized that we were finished. I took refuge in the dugout like the last coward and, trembling with fear, hid in a corner where, as it seemed to me, the tank could not crush me. They simply drove through our positions. A lot of screams were heard - Russian speech, the voices of Romanians. I was afraid to move. It was 6 am. At eight or about half past nine it became quieter. One of my colleagues, Fritz, was killed. The wounded screamed in agony. The wounded and killed Russian soldiers were taken away, but the Germans and Romanians were left lying. I was twenty years old and didn't know what to do.
The wounded needed help. But I didn't know how to give first aid, I didn't have any medicine, and I knew they had no hope of survival. I just left, leaving behind 15-20 wounded. One German shouted at me that I was acting like a pig. I realized that I could not do anything for them and it was better for me to leave, knowing that I could not help. I went to the bunker with the stove. It was warm inside, there was straw and blankets on the floor. When I went out to collect firewood, I heard the engine running in the cliff. It was a broken-down Russian SUV, with some firewood lying next to it. Two officers approached me and I retreated. They decided that I was a Russian soldier who had put on a German coat. I saluted. He gestured that his butt hurt. I lit a fire and slept all day. I was scared to wake up. What was ahead of me?
I prepared to leave as soon as it got dark. In the Hitler Youth we were taught to navigate by the North Star. I went west. I didn’t know what was happening: whether the Russians had Stalingrad, and whether the 6th German Army of the Wehrmacht was defeated. I was walking right to the place where the breakthrough occurred.
I wasn't even 20 yet. Reluctantly, I had to throw all the blankets away. The snow gradually covered the wounded. I took everything I could from my fallen comrades: the best rifle, the best pistol, and as much food as I could carry. I didn't know how far I would have to walk before I reached the German front line. I refreshed myself as best I could and set off. For three days in a row I slept in barns and ate snow.
One day I saw a man and he saw me. I knelt down, weapon in hand, and waited. I was wearing a Romanian fur hat. He shouted something. Then he asked if I was Romanian, I replied that I was German. He said that he was also German. We went together and walked another two days. We almost died when we crossed the German front line because the command decided that I was a deserter, so I don’t know anything about what happened to my unit.
I ended up in a battle group under the command of Lindemann. There were no more divisions and regiments. We've lost everything. Then we began to put into practice Hitler’s “scorched earth” tactics. One day we passed through a village consisting of 6-8 houses. Lindemann ordered to take everything that was in the premises and then burn them to the ground. The houses were very modest, they didn’t even have a floor. I opened the door of one of them. It was full of women, children and old people. I smelled poverty. And cabbage. People were sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall. I ordered them to leave the house, and they began to explain that everyone would die homeless. A woman with a baby in her arms asked if I had a mother. An elderly woman stood nearby, and with her a child. I grabbed the child, put the gun to his head and told him that if they didn't leave the house, I would shoot him. Some old man asked to shoot him instead of the boy. Lindemann ordered me to burn the house, even if they did not want to leave. I did as I was ordered. Then people opened the doors and began to run out into the street screaming. I'm sure none of them survived.
We ordinary German soldiers who fought by conscription also got it. The Russians attacked us. Among us there were very young people - even younger than me - who walked through the snow in the hope of joining their unit. Russian Sturmovik planes appeared in the sky as we walked through the snow and noticed our tracks. We even saw the pilots inside. They made a circle and fired at us. The shell hit one soldier and literally cut him in half - his name was Willie. He was a good friend. He had no chance to survive. We couldn't carry him, but we couldn't leave him either. I, as the eldest, had to make a decision. Knee-deep in snow, I walked up, stroked his head and sprinkled it with snow. I was a run-of-the-mill killer again, but what else was there to do?
I was wounded again (for the third time). They grabbed me, but I ran away. Then I was taken to a German hospital in Westphalia in 1944. At the beginning of 1945, I again joined a unit on the Western Front to fight the Americans. It was easier to fight with them than with the Russians. Moreover, because of all the brutal crimes that we committed in Russia, the Russians truly hated us, and in order to avoid captivity we had to fight like animals.
I was sent to defend the Rhine immediately after the landing. Patton's army was advancing on Paris. After the defeat on March 17, 1945, we were transported by train to Cherbourg. We - hundreds of German soldiers - were put in open carriages. We were not allowed to use the toilets, but were given enough food. For toilets we used tin cans. When the French at the crossing began to insult us, we began to throw these cans at them. Then we arrived in Cherbourg.
I saw the full horror of devastation stretching from east to west. What have we done! I have seen catastrophic losses. 50 million people died in this war! We wanted to seize territory and 50% of the planet's natural resources, including oil located in Russia. That's what it was.
Looking back now, I salute the Red Army for saving the world from Hitler. They lost more people in this war. Nine out of ten German soldiers who died during World War II died in Russia. I was asked to come to the Memorial near the Imperial War Museum a couple of weeks ago. I gave a speech there in which I paid tribute to the Red Army...
We Germans thought we had the strongest army in the world, but look what happened to us - Americans should remember this. Revolution will happen everywhere, even if it doesn't happen exactly as Boris said. A new awakening of revolutionary forces is inevitable.
The Stalin Society had the honor of having Henry Metelmann speak at the Annual General Meeting on 23 February 2003, chaired by Ella Ruhl, with Iris Kramer as secretary. He shared memorable memories of his childhood in Hitler's Germany, before he fell at Stalingrad as part of the German army. He drew parallels between fascist German expansionism and today's Anglo-American imperialist aggression against Iraq. This version is compiled from extensive notes obtained during the meeting.
Zhukov is the greatest commander.... And no one knows what kind of relationship he should have with his subordinates. A commander must win, and Zhukov won always and everywhere. He won from the first days of the war. Zhukov exhausted the enemy in all three directions North, Center, South and near Moscow inflicted a defeat that buried the Wehrmacht forever.
It doesn’t matter to me what Eremenko said about Zhukov - this blabbermouth. The results of commander Zhukov are important to me...
On November 24, 1941, in a conversation with the chief of staff of the ground forces, Halder, the commander of the reserve army, Colonel General Fromm, concluded that “a truce is necessary”...
On November 29, 1941, Minister of Armaments and Ammunition F. Todt told Hitler that “militarily and military-economically, the war has already been lost” and a political settlement is necessary.
General G. Blumentritt "...we were confronted by an army whose fighting qualities were far superior to all other armies that we had ever encountered on the battlefield."
You can see what Army General Zhukov did with the German generals during half a year of war...
♦Field Marshal von Brauchitsch, Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht ground forces - was removed and retired on December 6, 1941 - no longer took part in the war.
♦Field Marshal von Leeb, commander of Army Group North - was removed and retired on January 16, 1942 - no longer took part in the war.
♦Field Marshal von Bock, commander of Army Group Center - was removed and retired in July 1942 and took no further part in the war.
♦Field Marshal von Rundstedt, commander of Army Group South - was removed from office on December 12, 1941 - no longer took part in the Eastern Front.
♦Colonel General Guderian, commander of the 2nd Panzer Group, was removed and sent on December 26, 1941 to the OKH reserve, where he remained until 1943.
♦Colonel General Geppner, commander of the 4th Panzer Group, was stripped of his military rank on January 8, 1942, dismissed from the army without the right to wear a uniform - he no longer took part in the war.
These are the main figures of the Wehrmacht; another 35 German generals, corps and division commanders were dismissed. When they asked the head of the Supreme High Command of the Wehrmacht, Field Marshal Keitel, what was happening to Hitler?... He answered: “I don’t know, he doesn’t tell me anything, he just spits on me. He states that “...anyone can master this operational art of yours.”
Hitler’s phrase, “...anyone can master this operational art of yours,” was Zhukov’s most important victory.
If you try to take any book on the history of the Great Patriotic War, which describes the actions of Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, the battles that he led, the methods of his leadership and the circumstances of the battles, then you will find that there are practically no numbers anywhere. Instead of the language of numbers and maps, that is, facts, there are epithets: “difficult”, “superior”, “difficult conditions”, “gaining experience”, “causing great losses”, and so on. That is, instead of history, which is a systematization and analysis of facts, we are dealing with a kind of retrospective propaganda, that is, propaganda directed into the depths of history, where instead of facts we are given an attitude without the specifics of these facts.
If you show patience, persistence, tediousness, and start rummaging through libraries and the Internet, then you will find that Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov did not win a single battle in his life, having less forces, means, soldiers, equipment, ammunition, fuel, or an equal amount of forces and means with the enemy, and only when he had many times more. And his losses were always many times greater than those of the enemy.
“We must fight not with numbers, but with skill,” Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov repeated after Frederick the Second the Great. In Zhukov this very art, that is, the ability to fight not with numbers, but with skill, could not be detected.
Zhukov, who killed more of his own soldiers than any commander in world history, was artificially made a hero, because there must be a great commander in the great war in which we won..
and which books specifically, please provide links...
Well, if yours is clear, but there are orders in which Zhukov taught the same Eremenko to take care of soldiers...
Here is one such order
"...“The failure of the 49th Army to complete its tasks and the large losses in personnel are explained by the exceptional personal guilt of the division commanders, who are still grossly violating the instructions of Comrade Stalin and<требование>front orders on the massing of artillery for a breakthrough, on the tactics and technology of attacking defenses in populated areas. Units of the 49th Army have been criminally conducting frontal attacks on the settlements of Kostino, Ostrozhnoe, Bogdanovo, Potapovo for many days and, suffering huge losses, have no success.
Every basic military literate person should understand that the above villages represent a very advantageous and favorable defensive position. The area in front of the villages is under full shelling, and, despite this, criminally carried out attacks continue in the same place, and as a result of the stupidity and indiscipline of the would-be organizers, people are paying with thousands of lives without bringing any benefit to the Motherland.
If you want to be retained in your current positions, I demand:
Stop criminal attacks on populated areas;
Stop frontal attacks on heights with good shelling;
Advance only through ravines, forests and areas with little fire; "..."
or maybe it was not necessary to demand, but to shoot a couple of generals or put them in front of the chains....
Otherwise, books, books, what the hell are you making up references to?
I wrote because I know that in every operation where Zhukov was commander, minimal losses were ensured with complete victory achieved.
From the first days of the war, Zhukov went to the Southwestern Front from the very borders of Lvov. Halder wrote in his diary on the third day of the war that Russian counterattacks in the south created a dangerous situation and were supported by skillful and energetic command. These counterattacks were commanded by Zhukov. Halder stated that such Russian tactics forced the Wehrmacht to bring the 11th Reserve Army into battle in order to achieve success in this direction.
Chief of Staff Halder wrote in his diary: June 26 (day 5): Morning reports: “Army Group South is slowly moving forward, unfortunately suffering significant losses. The enemy operating against Army Group South exhibits firm and energetic leadership. The enemy is constantly bringing up new fresh forces from the depths against our tank wedge.”
Halder is echoed by the commander of the 3rd German Panzer Group, General Hoth:
“The group “South” had the hardest time of all. The enemy troops defending in front of the formations of the northern wing were thrown back from the border, but they quickly recovered from the unexpected blow and counterattacked their reserves to stop the advance of the German troops. The operational breakthrough of the 1st Tank Group, attached to the 6th Army, was not achieved until June 28.
All attempts by Guderian and Hoth to break through to Moscow were thwarted by Zhukov near Yelnya...
Here is what the German military historian Paul Karel writes about the significance of the battles near Yelnya: “From the end of July to the beginning of September, Army Group Center had to fight the first major defensive battle. During this month, 10 divisions passed through the Yelninsky hell (10 tank, motorized Reich, reinforced motorized regiment Great Germany, 17 tank, 15 infantry division, 268 infantry division, 78 infantry division, 137 infantry division, 263 infantry division, 292 infantry division).
As a result, it became clear to everyone that hopes for the Blitzkrieg were buried near Smolensk and Yelnya. Already on August 30, the troops of Army Group Center began to prepare for winter.”
Now according to the number of troops on the Elninsky ledge against Zhukov...
The Yelninsky ledge was occupied by Fitinghof's 46th Tank Corps in early August. This was the best tank corps of the Wehrmacht; its divisions were commanded by lieutenant generals. The German command could not allow the death of the 46th Tank Corps and was forced to remove it and replace it with three army corps (7th, 9th, 20th). Tank losses in the 46th Tank Tank reached 55-60% of the regular strength.
Guderian himself assessed the situation of the 46th Tank Army this way: “If these troops are defeated, there will be a great political resonance. Such a catastrophe cannot be reliably prevented by a tank group alone. It is possible that the 10th Panzer and SS Reich Division, the Grossdeutschland Regiment and the 268th Infantry Division will be defeated.”
As a result of the withdrawal of 46 Tank Corps to the rear, three German army corps (7th, 9th, 20th), which included 6 infantry and one tank division, operated against Zhukov’s troops.
From Zhukov’s side, the 24A Reserve Front took part in the offensive, consisting of one tank, two mechanized and 5 rifle divisions.
As a result, 8 Soviet divisions attacked 7 German ones. Moreover, the number of Russian divisions in the state had about 9,000 fighters, and the German divisions had 14,000.
It is obvious that on both sides the divisions were not at full strength. From this it can be seen that Zhukov attacked with smaller forces and won.
In early September, Zhukov liberated Yelnya and “cut off” the Yelnya ledge.
Hitler lost five weeks on the Yelninsky ledge and was forced to withdraw his troops and take up a strong defense in this direction. But that is not all…
Guderian's tank group was turned south towards Kyiv, as a result, the round trip was about 1000 km. Which greatly reduced the service life of Guderian’s tank army. As a result, in the battle of Moscow, Guderian simply did not have enough tanks and he got stuck near Tula.
Every year on May 9, when Victory Day is celebrated in Russia, veterans of the 62nd Army gather in the northeast of Moscow in a high school building. It is named after Vasily Chuikov, the commander of their army that defeated the Germans at Stalingrad. First, the veterans listen to poems performed by schoolchildren. Then they go around the small war museum located in the school building. Then they sit down at the festive table in a solemnly decorated room. Veterans clink glasses of vodka or juice, tearfully remembering their comrades. After many toasts, the sonorous baritone of Colonel General Anatoly Merezhko sets the tone for the performance of military songs. Behind the long table hangs a huge poster of the Reichstag burning. From Stalingrad, the 62nd Army, renamed the 8th Guards, moved west through Ukraine, Belarus and Poland and reached Berlin. One of the veterans present proudly recalls writing his name on the ruins of the German parliament in 1945.
Every year on one Saturday in November, a group of German veterans of Stalingrad meets in Limburg, a city located forty miles from Frankfurt. They gather in the austere premises of the community center to remember departed comrades and count their dwindling ranks. Their memories over coffee, cake and beer last until the evening. The next morning, on the National Day of Mourning (Totensonntag), veterans visit the local cemetery. They gather around a memorial stone in the shape of an altar with the inscription “Stalingrad 1943”. In front of him lies a wreath, into which are woven the banners of the 22 German divisions destroyed by the Red Army between November 1942 and February 1943. Representatives of city authorities make speeches condemning the wars of the past and present. A German army reserve unit stands guard of honor as a lone trumpeter plays the mournful melody of the traditional German war song "Ich Einen Hatt "Kameraden" ("I Had a Comrade").
Photo 1. Vera Dmitrievna Bulushova, Moscow, November 12, 2009.
Photo 2. Gerhard Münch, Lohmar (near Bonn), November 16, 2009
The Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted more than six months, became a turning point in the entire Second World War. Both the Nazi and Stalinist regimes threw in all their might to capture/defend the city that bore the name of Stalin. What meaning did the soldiers of both sides put into this confrontation? What motivated them to fight to the last, even against the odds of success? How did they perceive themselves and their opponents at this critical moment in world history?
To avoid the distortions inherent in soldiers' memoirs, in which the war is viewed retrospectively, I decided to turn to wartime documents: combat orders, propaganda leaflets, personal diaries, letters, drawings, photographs, newsreels. They capture intense emotions - love, hatred, rage - generated by war. State archives are not rich in military documents of personal origin. The search for documents of this kind led me to meetings of German and Russian “Stalingraders”, and from there to the thresholds of their houses.
Veterans willingly shared their war letters and photographs. Our meetings revealed important facts that I had initially overlooked: the enduring presence of war in their lives and the striking differences between German and Russian war memories. It’s been seven decades since the war became a thing of the past, but its traces are firmly ingrained in the bodies, thoughts and feelings of the survivors. I discovered that area of military experience that no archive can reveal. Veterans' homes are steeped in this experience. It is captured in photographs and military “relics” that either hang on the walls or are carefully kept in secluded places; it is noticeable in the straight backs and courteous manners of former officers; it shines through the scarred faces and mangled limbs of wounded soldiers; he lives in the everyday facial expressions of veterans, expressing sadness and joy, pride and shame.
To fully capture the presence of military experience in the present, the recorder must be complemented by a camera. Experienced photographer and friend Emma Dodge Hanson kindly accompanied me on these visits. Over the course of two weeks, Emma and I visited Moscow, as well as a number of cities, towns and villages in Germany, where we visited about twenty veterans’ homes. Emma has an amazing ability to take photographs in a way that makes people feel at ease and almost oblivious to the photographer's presence. Using natural light whenever possible allowed the reflections reflected in the eyes of the subjects to be captured. Richly nuanced black-and-white photographs provide a glimpse of how the furrows of wrinkles deepen as veterans laugh, cry or grieve. Combining hours of voice recordings and a stream of photographs made it possible to notice that memories represent for veterans the same reality of everyday life as the furniture around them.
We visited both modest and luxurious houses, spoke with high-ranking officers, decorated with numerous awards, and with ordinary soldiers, observed our hosts either in a festive mood or in a state of silent grief. When we photographed our interlocutors, some of them were dressed in ceremonial uniforms, which became too large for their shrunken bodies. Some veterans showed us various trinkets that supported them during the war and captivity. We observed two contrasting memory cultures at work. The haunting specters of loss and defeat are common in Germany. A sense of national pride and sacrifice prevails in Russia. Military uniforms and medals are much more common among Soviet veterans. Russian women, to a greater extent than German women, declare their active participation in the war. In German stories, Stalingrad is often marked as a traumatic break in personal biography. Russian veterans, on the contrary, even when recalling personal tragic losses during the war, as a rule, emphasize that it was a time of their successful self-realization.
Soon, Stalingrad veterans will no longer be able to discuss the war and its impact on their lives. It is necessary to have time to record and compare their voices and faces. Of course, their current reflections on the events of seventy years ago should not be identified with the reality they experienced in 1942 and 1943. Each person's experience represents a linguistic construct that is maintained by society and changes over time. Thus, the memories of veterans reflect the changing attitude of society towards the war. Despite this, their narratives provide important information both about the Battle of Stalingrad itself and about the fluctuating nature of cultural memory.
800 thousand women served in the Red Army during World War II. We met two of them. Vera Bulushova was born in 1921, the eldest in a family of five children. She voluntarily went to the front after learning of the German invasion in June 1941. At first she was refused, but in the spring of 1942 the Red Army began to accept women into its ranks. During the Stalingrad campaign, Bulushova was a junior officer at the counterintelligence headquarters. By the end of the war she was promoted to the rank of captain. Bulushova and another female veteran, Maria Faustova, showed us the scars from shrapnel wounds that covered their faces and legs, and they also talked about the amputations that often disfigured their fellow soldiers. Maria Faustova recalled a conversation on a commuter train shortly after the war: “I also have a lot of wounds. There are mine fragments in the leg - 17 stitches. When I was young, I wore nylon stockings. I’m sitting, we were waiting for the train, and the woman sitting opposite me asks: “Baby, where did you run into the barbed wire?”
Answering a question about the significance of Stalingrad in her life, Bulushova answered briefly: “I walked and fulfilled my duty. And after Berlin I already got married.” Other Russian veterans also tend to recall personal sacrifice for the sake of state interests. A striking manifestation of this was the photograph of Bulushova standing under an embroidered portrait of Marshal Georgy Zhukov, who led the defense of Stalingrad. (Bulushova was the only one who refused to meet at her home. She preferred a meeting at the Moscow Association of War Veterans, where this photo was taken.) None of the Russian veterans I spoke with were married or had children during the war . The explanation was simple: the Soviet army did not provide for leave, and therefore husbands were torn away from their wives and children during the war.
Photos 4 and 5. Vera Dmitrievna Bulushova, Moscow, November 12, 2009.
Maria Faustova, who was a radio operator during the war, claimed that she never fell into despair and considered it her duty to encourage her fellow soldiers. Other Soviet veterans also spoke about their war experiences in moral terms, emphasizing that strength of will and character was their mainstay in the fight against the enemy. In this way, they reproduced the mantra of wartime Soviet propaganda that increasing the enemy threat only strengthened the moral fiber of the Red Army.
Anatoly Merezhko came to the Stalingrad Front from the bench of the military academy. On a sunny August day in 1942, he witnessed most of his fellow cadets being pulverized by a German tank brigade. Merezhko started as a junior officer at the headquarters of the 62nd Army under the command of Vasily Chuikov. The culmination of his post-war career was the rank of colonel general and the position of deputy chief of staff of the Warsaw Pact troops. In this capacity, he played a key role in the decision to build the Berlin Wall in 1961.
Anatoly Grigorievich Merezhko, Moscow, November 11, 2009
Stalingrad holds a special place in his memory: “Stalingrad for me is the birth of (me as) a commander. This is perseverance, prudence, foresight - i.e. all the qualities that a real commander should have. Love for your soldier, subordinate, and, moreover, this is the memory of those dead friends whom we sometimes could not even bury. They threw the corpses, retreating, they could not even drag them into craters or trenches, cover them with earth, and if they did cover them with earth, then the best monument was a shovel stuck into an earthen burial mound and a helmet put on. We could not erect any other monument. Therefore, Stalingrad for me is holy land.” Echoing Merezhko, Grigory Zverev argued that it was in Stalingrad that he was formed as a soldier and officer. He began the campaign as a second lieutenant and ended it as the youngest captain in his unit. When we met with Zverev, he laid out several sets of military uniforms on the bed, doubting which one would look better in our photographs.
Photos 8 and 9. Grigory Afanasyevich Zverev, Moscow, November 12, 2009.
Compare the unbroken morale and pride of the Russians with the nightmares that haunt the German survivors of Stalingrad. Gerhard Münch was the battalion commander of the 71st Infantry Division that led the attack on Stalingrad in September 1942. For more than three months, he and his men fought hand-to-hand combat inside a giant administrative building near the Volga. The Germans held the entrance to the building on one side, the Soviet soldiers on the other. In mid-January, several of Munch's hungry and demoralized subordinates decided to lay down their arms. Munch did not give them a court-martial. He led them to his command post and showed them that he lived on the same tiny rations and slept on the same hard and cold floor. The soldiers swore to fight as long as he commanded them.
On January 21, Munch was ordered to report to the army command post, which was located in close proximity to the besieged city. A motorcycle was sent for him. That winter landscape was forever etched in his memory. He described it to me, pausing between words: “Thousands of unburied soldiers... Thousands... A narrow road ran among these dead bodies. Due to the strong wind they were not covered with snow. A head stuck out here, a hand there. It was, you know... It was... such an experience... When we reached the army command post, I was going to read out my report, but they said, “That's not necessary. You will be evacuated this evening." Münch was selected for the General Staff officer training program. He flew away on one of the last planes to escape the Stalingrad cauldron. His people were surrounded.
Photo 10. Gerhard Münch, Lohmar (near Bonn), November 16, 2009
A few days after the evacuation from Stalingrad, Münch received a short leave home to meet his young wife. Frau Münch recalled that her husband could not hide his gloomy mood. During the war, many German soldiers saw their wives and families regularly. The army provided exhausted soldiers with furloughs to restore morale. In addition, soldiers during home leave had to produce offspring to ensure the future of the Aryan race. The Munchs got married in December 1941. While Gerhard Münch was fighting in Stalingrad, his wife was expecting their first child. Many German soldiers married during the war. German photo albums of that time preserve luxurious printed announcements of wedding ceremonies, photographs of smiling couples, the groom in his unchanged military uniform, the bride in a nurse's outfit. Some of these albums contained photographs of captured female Red Army soldiers with the caption "Flintenweiber" (Woman with a Pistol). From the Nazi point of view, this was evidence of the depravity that reigned in Soviet society. They believed that a woman should give birth to soldiers, not fight.
Photo 11. Gerhard and Anna-Elisabeth Münch, Lohmar (near Bonn), November 16, 2009
Tankman Gerhard Kollak married his wife Lucia in the fall of 1940, so to speak, “remote access”. He was called to the command post of his military unit, located in Poland, between which a telephone connection was established with the marriage registration office in East Prussia, where his bride was located. During the war, Germans, unlike Soviet citizens, were much more active in creating families. Therefore, they had something to lose. Kollack was on home leave for several months in 1941 and then briefly in the fall of 1942 to see his daughter Doris. After that, he again went to the Eastern Front and went missing at Stalingrad. The hope that her husband was alive and would one day return from Soviet captivity sustained Lucia at the end of the war during her flight under bombs from East Prussia through Dresden to Austria. In 1948, she received official notification that Gerhard Kollak had died in Soviet captivity: “I was in despair, I wanted to smash everything to smithereens. First I lost my homeland, then my husband, who died in Russia.”
Lucia Kollak, Münster, November 18, 2009
Memories of the husband she knew for two short years before he disappeared almost a lifetime ago haunt Lucia Collac to this day. For her, Stalingrad - a city, a battle, a burial place - is a “colossus” that crushes her heart with its entire mass. General Munch also notes this heaviness: “The thought that I survived in this place... apparently, fate led me, which allowed me to get out of the cauldron. Why me? This is a question that haunts me all the time." For these two and many others, the legacy of Stalingrad is traumatic. When we first contacted Münch, he agreed to be photographed, but made it clear that he did not want to talk about Stalingrad. But then the memories flowed like a river and he spoke for several hours in a row.
As we said goodbye, Münch mentioned his upcoming 95th birthday and said that he was expecting a guest of honor - Franz Chiquet, who had been his aide-de-camp during the Stalingrad campaign. Munch knew that Chiquet had been captured by the Soviets in February 1943, but his further fate remained unknown to Munch until Chiquet called him several years ago. After spending seven years in a prison camp, he ended up in communist East Germany. Therefore, I got the opportunity to find my former battalion commander only after the collapse of the GDR. Laughing, Munch instructed us not to discuss with Chiquet about his rather strange political views.
When we visited Schieke's modest apartment in East Berlin a few days later, we were struck by how his perceptions of the war contrasted with those of other Germans. Refusing to speak in the language of personal trauma, he insisted on the need to reflect on the historical significance of the war: “My personal memories of Stalingrad have no meaning. I am concerned that we are unable to come to an understanding of the essence of the past. The fact that I personally managed to get out of there alive is only one side of the story.” In his opinion, this was the story of “international finance capital”, which benefits from all the wars of the past and present. Chiquet was one of many German "Stalingraders" who proved susceptible to Soviet post-war "re-education". Soon after his release from the Soviet camp, he joined the SED, the East German communist party. Most West German survivors of Soviet captivity described it as hell, but Chiquet insisted that the Soviets were humane: they treated the severe head wound he received during the siege of Stalingrad and they provided prisoners with food.
Franz Schicke, Berlin, November 19, 2009.
An ideological divide still exists between West German and East German memories of Stalingrad. However, the shared experience of experiencing the hardships of war helps to form close personal bonds. When Münch and Chiquet met after decades of separation, the retired Bundeswehr general asked his former adjutant to address him as "you."
German and Russian survivors of Stalingrad remember it as a place of unimaginable horror and suffering. While many Russians attach deep personal and social significance to their combat experiences, German veterans struggle with the traumatic effects of rupture and loss. It seems to me extremely important that Russian and German memories of Stalingrad enter into dialogue. The Battle of Stalingrad, which marks the turning point of the war and looms large in the national memory landscapes of Russia and Germany, deserves this.
To this end, I created a small exhibition presenting portraits and voices of Russian and German veterans. The exhibition opened at the Volgograd Panorama Museum, which is dedicated exclusively to the memory of the Battle of Stalingrad. The massive concrete structure, built at the end of the Soviet era, is located on the elevated bank of the Volga, on the site of fierce fighting in the autumn and winter of 1942/43. It was here that Gerhard Münch and his adjutant Franz Schicke fought for several months in an effort to gain control of the river. A few hundred meters to the south was the command post of the Soviet 62nd Army under the command of Chuikov, dug into the steep river bank, where Anatoly Merezhko and other staff officers coordinated the Soviet defense and counteroffensive.
According to many, the blood-soaked soil on which the museum stands is sacred. Therefore, its director initially objected to the idea of hanging portraits of Russian and German soldiers side by side. He argued that Soviet "war heroes" would be desecrated by the presence of "fascists". In addition to him, some local veterans also opposed the proposed exhibition, arguing that the “unstaged” portraits of war participants in their home environment, often without full dress uniform, smacked of “pornography.”
These objections were removed to a large extent with the help of Colonel General Merezhko. One of the most senior living Soviet officers, he specially flew from Moscow to visit the exhibition. At its opening, Merezhko, dressed in a civilian suit, gave a touching speech in which he called for reconciliation and lasting peace between two countries that had previously fought with each other more than once. Merezhko was joined by Maria Faustova, who undertook a nineteen-hour train journey to recite a poem dedicated to Victory Day. The poem spoke about the hardships and losses that befell Soviet citizens during the four long years of war. When Maria reached the stanza dedicated to the Battle of Stalingrad, she burst into tears. (Several German veterans also wanted to attend the exhibition, but poor health forced them to cancel the trip.)
In terms of human losses, Stalingrad is comparable to the Battle of Verdun during the First World War. The parallel between the two battles was not lost on contemporaries. Already in 1942, with a mixture of fear and horror, they called Stalingrad the “second” or “red Verdun”. On the territory of the Verdun Memorial, managed by the French government, is the Douamont Ossuary, where the remains of 130 thousand unidentified soldiers from the fighting armies are buried. A permanent exhibition has been created inside it, presenting huge portraits of veterans of both sides - Germans, French, Belgians, British, Americans, who hold their photographs from the war in their hands. Perhaps one day a similar monument will be created in Volgograd, which will honor the feat of Soviet soldiers, for the sake of memory of the human cost of the Battle of Stalingrad, and will unite them in dialogue with the faces and voices of former opponents.
