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00:36Throughout the autumn of 1942, the German 6th Army slowly ground its way towards the
00:44capture of Stalingrad.
00:50Deep behind the Russian lines, preparations were already underway for a massive counter-offensive
00:57to be launched on November the 19th.
01:01This counter-offensive would doom 6th Army's effort and spell the collapse of the whole
01:09German campaign in the south.
01:18This great offensive would not fall on the city itself, but on the thinly held German lines
01:25to the north and south of the city.
01:29North of Stalingrad, the situation was particularly alarming.
01:34The great bend of the River Don was held by a mixture of Romanian, Italian and Hungarian forces.
01:44In these weeks, we built our position there.
01:49The battle that I carried out was due to the
01:52to the Romans, and as it was often in the war,
01:58in a border situation to a neighbor,
02:01whose strength was not so high,
02:05was my Bataillon even further stärked.
02:10The determination for this stärker
02:14was also due to that we were already in October
02:18on the north side of our border,
02:21also over the Don nach Norden hinaus,
02:23that they were on the russes side
02:26a huge troop movement was carried out.
02:29And in their direction was always
02:33to the west, that is also
02:35the direction of the rumenian army was directed.
02:38This led to the doubt that the Russian
02:42that the Russian
02:44brought stronger forces in the rumenian section
02:48and eventually,
02:49just in the end of the year
02:51as a not so powerful section,
02:54an attack company prepared.
03:01The Hungarians and the Romanians
03:03are traditional enemies.
03:06So Army Group B inserted the Italian 8th Army into the line.
03:14As the build-up to the Soviet offensive
03:16could no longer be concealed,
03:18it was perfectly obvious to many
03:20in the German high command
03:22that a potential disaster was looming there.
03:26Despite the appalling demands of the fighting,
03:29some reinforcements were made available.
03:34I had also außer der normalen
03:37Stärke meines Bataillons
03:39noch eine zusätzliche Kompanie
03:41unterstellt bekommen.
03:42Ich hatte ferner noch
03:44eine Panzerabwehr-Kompanie
03:45zur Verstärkung.
03:46Ich hatte eine Nebelwerfer-Batterie
03:48zur Verstärkung.
03:49Und außerdem war in meinem Abschnitt
03:51noch eine zusätzliche Artillerie-Abteilung
03:54eingesetzt.
03:54Die Stellung war auch insofern nicht ganz unwichtig,
03:58weil links von mir, also westlich, am Don,
04:04neben der sechsten Armee
04:06die dritte rumänische Armee
04:07eingesetzt worden war.
04:09Und mein unmittelbarer Nacht war
04:11war die erste rumänische Cavalier-Division.
04:16Not only did Hitler ignore the warnings
04:19of his generals,
04:20which grew more urgent
04:21as the campaign developed,
04:23but he continuously weakened the flanks
04:26by siphoning off forces
04:28to feed his ongoing obsession
04:30with capturing the city.
04:33As Russian strength grew,
04:35so did the intensity of their attacks
04:37on the exposed flanks
04:39of the 6th Army.
04:43Das Geschützfeuer
04:46war zunächst nicht besonders schlimm.
04:50Es entwickelten sich aber punktuelle Angriffe
04:53und der Russe versuchte mit Panzern,
04:57vornehmlich D-34
04:58und den Panzern folgender Infanteristen
05:05in unsere Stellung herein zu kommen.
05:08Diese Angriffe konnten aber immer wieder
05:11gut abgewehrt werden.
05:16Although the Red Army
05:17was holding on by its fingertips
05:19in the city itself,
05:21Soviet Intelligence was well aware
05:23that the German Army was being pushed
05:26to the very limits of its strength.
05:31The huge reserves of the Russian industrial hinterland
05:35were now producing tanks and guns
05:37in the quantities needed.
05:40Vast reserves of manpower could still be tapped,
05:43and a massive counterstroke
05:45was at last a possibility.
05:51Worst of all,
05:53the Germans were fighting the battle
05:54at the end of a supply line
05:561,200 miles in length.
06:03Every single bullet,
06:05every single gun,
06:06every single piece of food
06:08had to be brought 1,200 miles
06:11from Berlin to Stalingrad.
06:14One more reason
06:15for the impending disaster.
06:20The Soviet High Command
06:22saw with a keen eye
06:24that both sides
06:25of the thinly stretched line
06:26to the north and south of Stalingrad
06:28were held by low quality Romanian,
06:32Hungarian and Italian troops.
06:35It was upon these divisions
06:36that the great Russian counterattack
06:39would break.
06:43Many of the German High Command
06:45were aware of the dangers,
06:47and Zeitzler, the Chief of Staff,
06:50actually flew to Hitler's headquarters
06:53in order to plead for permission
06:55for a withdrawal
06:56before the coming Soviet offensive
06:58had even begun.
07:00But Hitler was emphatic.
07:02He refused to move his troops
07:05from the Volga,
07:06and the rest is history.
07:10The Soviet counterstroke
07:12was unleashed on November the 19th.
07:17We could then,
07:19on the 19th, 20th,
07:2121th November,
07:23we could see
07:25that the area
07:26from us,
07:27from the left,
07:28to the west,
07:31and from the left,
07:34to the left,
07:35to the left,
07:36we could see
07:36that the Russians
07:37with both
07:39Panzers
07:40and infantry
07:41were broken there.
07:47The scale
07:49of the Soviet counteroffensive,
07:51which opened
07:51on November the 19th, 1942,
07:54came as a catastrophic shock
07:57to the Germans.
07:58There had been
07:59intelligence reports,
08:01but Hitler
08:02didn't realize
08:03the scale
08:04of what was going to happen.
08:07The first thing
08:08that happened
08:09was,
08:09that to the north
08:11of the Don,
08:12north of Stalingrad,
08:14several Soviet armies,
08:15including a tank army,
08:17fell on the German flank
08:19manned by the Romanian,
08:20Hungarian,
08:21or Italian armies.
08:23And at the sight
08:24of this Russian advance,
08:26the Romanians broke
08:27and fled.
08:29The full scale
08:31of the impending disaster
08:32could only be seen
08:34from the air.
08:38When I was there
08:39again,
08:40with a school friend
08:42from here,
08:43a police officer
08:44from here,
08:47we went down
08:47and they had
08:48the same color
08:49and the form
08:50of the Russians.
08:51So
08:51räumlich.
08:54And
08:55there came
08:56the
08:56the
08:56we were
08:57we were
09:00we were
09:01we were
09:01we are
09:03we were
09:03we were
09:04we came back
09:06and made the
09:07that was not
09:08that could not happen.
09:10We were
09:12still
09:12and
09:13and
09:14the
09:15was
09:16we
09:16and gross, what do I do?
09:18There was a place with Tomini,
09:21who had to take the entire
09:23supply chain
09:24of the supply chain
09:26to take over.
09:28He was afraid.
09:30We were in the night in Stellung,
09:32we were then defending the place
09:33and then flew away.
09:35Sometimes 10 or 12
09:36at the time, in the ring,
09:38and then after Stalingrad.
09:41It was a crazy time,
09:42it was a idiotic time,
09:44because it would be vermeidable
09:45in the day.
09:48But then came it to
09:50that the morning of the 19.
09:53November,
09:53we were due to
09:56the news,
09:58that in this night
10:00it was known
10:02that an unmittelbar
10:04a big attack before.
10:07And shortly after
10:08this morning,
10:09was actually so,
10:11that both
10:13on the front
10:14of my own Bataillons,
10:15which was in the moment
10:17very well built
10:18but still more,
10:20west of us,
10:22on the side of the Romain,
10:24with a huge
10:26russical
10:27firefighting
10:28a russical
10:29Angriff
10:30that was
10:31there was
10:32in the end.
10:35We soon found out
10:37that the
10:37progress
10:38of this
10:38Russian attack
10:39was
10:42quite quickly
10:43being
10:44been
10:44released,
10:46while
10:47it was also
10:48before our
10:48position,
10:49all the russical
10:50attacks
10:50immediately
10:51and our position
10:53was never
10:54reached
10:56or even
10:57destroyed.
11:02Down to the south of Stalingrad, a second pincer movement then began in equal strength
11:08and in equal force.
11:10So the Germans discovered that they were actually fighting on two fronts, to the north and the
11:16south.
11:18They very rapidly had to try and organize a defense, which was extremely difficult under
11:24the conditions which they were now facing.
11:30They had to try and stabilize the area of the front, which the Romanians were supposed
11:34to hold, but which they weren't holding.
11:39They then discovered that they themselves were in the middle of a huge and a gigantic
11:44trap.
11:47This came as a very great shock to the German command.
11:51But it was really the weight, the speed and the ferocity of the Soviet counteroffensive,
11:57which really took them by surprise.
12:01This was no little local counterattack.
12:04It was a counteroffensive on a major scale.
12:27On November the 22nd, the two Russian armies met and Stalingrad was encircled.
12:36The hunters had now become the hunted, and an urgent race against time began.
12:55During those first days of the encirclement, 300,000 men of the 6th Army, holding out in a pocket
13:03of 20 by 30 miles, had barely six days rations of food and ammunition for only two days of
13:11serious fighting.
13:14Ominously, it was noted that many of its artillery batteries were already completely out of shells.
13:21To the men on the ground, however, the situation did not seem too alarming.
13:27As with the fluid frontlines of modern warfare, they had often seen situations like this before.
13:35Georg Mautry, with the 226th Infantry Regiment, and Fritz Bente, of the 203rd Infantry Division,
13:45were in action with the 6th Army at the time.
14:15The 6th Army should now be seen as the 6th Army should be seen as the troops in the flucht
14:25of charge of the troops, which were mainly the 44th Division and the 376th Division, should
14:32be taken off and should be taken in the defense of Stalingrad.
14:42For us was presented a position on a Hügelkamm in the northwest of the ring of the ring, which
14:55should be built in Stalingrad.
14:57Also, to this time was of course clear that we could not have the wind, but we could not
15:08have the opportunity to do that to us.
15:15We could not have the opportunity to move forward to the front of the troops.
15:24We could not have the opportunity to move forward to the front of the troops.
15:32to be in the next few days, in November, until the 23rd, 24th, 25th of November, the entire
15:42recovery of these Kräfte in Großen Donnburg, to which we also as Nachgut were. And we
15:48already overquered the 24th of November in Donn and had the feeling that now can
15:55us here in a moment, at least there will not happen. Now we are in the area of the Russian
16:046th Armee.
16:09Hope of salvation for the German 6th Army rested on a rapid and speedy breakout before the Russian
16:16siege lines could take shape. There are many convincing arguments to suggest that, had they
16:22seized the initiative, they would have escaped from the thinly held Soviet line of encirclement.
16:53That was carried out. We carried out only the necessary force on Munition and
16:58Verpflegung with, everything else was destroyed. But, as said, the request of the West to break out of the
17:05West, was left out. In the same way, we received the request of the West, now in the West of
17:15Stalingrad,
17:15and it was for me, in the near of the village Divi Trijevka, a new
17:21defense position, right on the free floor, on a high ground ground.
17:28On November 25th, Paulus urgently requested permission to begin the breakout.
17:36Many of the more pragmatic commanders began to prepare their men for the obvious course of action,
17:42a breakout to the south-west, to link up with the nearest German forces.
17:48There was a very bright, light winter morning. Then the request came, Stalingrad was
17:58set up. Then we had to pack everything together. Then we had to pack everything together. Then
18:12killing in the state exploded, the city anyway, and they're always qualcosa of
18:17wondering. And then they had the 25 얼마 of ammunition record and
18:20the S-S С-S, the S-S, the S-Vor replenish organization, all which cannot
18:26będzie there in the air startup, was everything done in the air force.
18:30And mid to 12 time was Siouxs per wouldn't occur.
18:44When the reply was received from Hitler's headquarters,
18:48it was greeted with disbelief.
18:52The Führer's orders were to move back into Stalingrad,
18:56where the army was to form itself into a fortress garrison
19:00and await relief.
19:04Was dort auch noch mir in Erinnerung geblieben ist,
19:08ist ein Zwischenfall mit einem jungen deutschen Soldaten.
19:14Diesen Zwischenfall werde ich nie vergessen,
19:16denn ich sehe ihn heute noch vor mir.
19:18Ich bin also zwischen den Bunkern, in denen meine Leute lagen,
19:24mal von einem Bunker zum anderen gegangen.
19:27Und da kam mir ein junger Soldat entgegen in normaler Kleidung.
19:32Der hatte keine Winterbekleidung an.
19:35Und er war ganz traurig und sagte mit einer halb gebrochenen Stimme,
19:43wo bin ich denn hier, wo kann ich denn hier hin,
19:47wo kann ich denn hier auch mal unterkommen und so.
19:49Und dann habe ich ihn mir angeguckt und dann habe ich festgestellt
19:53und von ihm auch erfahren,
19:54er war acht Tage vorher mit einem Transport aus Deutschland per Flugzeug in den Kessel eingeflogen worden,
20:05in normaler Bekleidung, keine Winterbekleidung und hatte sich von seiner Truppe verirrt und war jetzt hier allein.
20:14Eine ganz kurze, dreimonatige Ausbildung vorher und dann in den Kessel gebracht unter diesen Verhältnissen.
20:20Und was hatte er?
20:21Er hatte erfrorene Arme bis daher.
20:25Ich habe gegen geklopft und das war wie gegen Stein.
20:30Wir haben ihn natürlich bei uns aufgenommen, aber da war nichts mehr zu wollen.
20:34Und ich kann nur sagen, es hat mich erschüttert, festzustellen, dass hier eine deutsche Dienststelle
20:42derartige junge Leute in unverantwortlicher Weise dahin geschickt hat.
20:49Nichts anderes als Kanonenfutter, aber unglaublich.
20:54Also das hat mich wirklich so erschüttert, dass ich also da lange dran geknabbert habe,
20:59bis ich das überwunden habe.
21:02Merely giving Stalingrad the title of Fortress Stalingrad didn't transform it into one.
21:10What existed was at best a thinly held line of infantry and foxholes
21:16and it was never going to be enough to hold the pocket against the superior russian forces outside.
21:24Man ist ja immer mal, wir hatte ja dort oft keine Stellungen in dem Sinn wie man sonst,
21:30wenn man sagt, wenn man vom Feld aus angegriffen haben oder meistens waren wir ja in der freien Natur.
21:35Wir waren ja wenig in Orte, haben wir uns ja kaum aufgehalten.
21:38Wir waren ja immer in der freien Natur.
21:41Da haben wir von unseren Lösch aus ist dann wieder weitergegangen.
21:44Das war dort anders, da waren ja nur noch Lösch und ein Haufen drümmen in Stalingrad.
21:49Da war ja alles kaputt.
21:50Da war ja nichts mehr ganzes.
21:52Da hat man eben irgendwo, wo man eine schöne Stelle gefunden hat,
21:56ob das nur ein Loch war oder ob das irgendwie ein Stück Mauerrest war oder was es auch war.
22:02Und da bin ich durch Granatwerfer verfahren und verloren.
22:05Die habe ich ja da auch hinein geschossen.
22:08With the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious that once the chance to escape was missed,
22:15the Sixth Army was inescapably doomed.
22:19At the time, however, many of the officers and men still held an unshakable belief in the powers of Adolf
22:27Hitler.
22:31On November 26th, Hitler delivered a personal message to the beleaguered troops of Stalingrad,
22:38ordering them to stand fast and promising to do all in his power to support them.
22:45The problem of supplies was turned over to the Luftwaffe,
22:49which had so efficiently supplied the pocket of Demjansk the previous spring.
22:57At Demjansk, however, it was only a single German corps, which had been cut off by the Soviets,
23:04that had been successfully supplied from the air by the Luftwaffe.
23:10Hermann Göring, the boastful commander of the Luftwaffe,
23:14now assumed that when the Sixth Army was cut off in Stalingrad,
23:18he could supply the entire army.
23:22But at Stalingrad, some 300,000 men were trapped away from the German lines,
23:30facing a much better equipped, better organized and more experienced opponent.
23:36So although there are some parallels between Demjansk and Stalingrad,
23:41the sheer number of troops involved made it impossible to supply those men with the food
23:47and the ammunition that they required.
23:51In consequence, this army was always going to starve.
24:00When we hadفسed or fallen Russian ones to get,
24:06we had to put the Sacklet and pull out what he had.
24:10We had a handful of sunburns.
24:13We had some Bunjansk and the Majorga, the Tabak, also.
24:18We had the fallen and pulled it up,
24:20We had it. We had two or three sunflowers on the day, and they helped us, so we wouldn't
24:28get out of it anymore. We'd be hungry at other places.
24:34Hermann Göring had boasted that he could fly in 550 tons of supplies per day.
24:42Despite the skepticism of the Army's Chiefs of Staff, the airlift began on November 25th.
24:50The results of the first days of the operation were ominous for the troops still fighting
24:55the Rats' War among the cellars and ruins of the city.
25:02Only 140 tons were delivered on day one. The same quantities arrived on day two, and on
25:11the third day, no supplies whatsoever reached the desperate German forces.
25:18Mr.
25:20Mr.
25:20Mr.
25:20Mr.
25:32Mr.
25:33Mr.
25:48Mr.
26:02Mr.
26:03Mr.
26:10Mr.
26:22Mr.
26:33Mr.
26:34Müller describes what he saw when he arrived at Gumrak.
27:00Mr.
27:05Mr.
27:13Mr.
27:18Mr.
27:21Mr.
27:27Mr.
27:30Mr.
27:31Mr.
27:42Mr.
27:43Mr.
27:44Mr.
27:44Mr.
28:11Mr.
28:12Mr.
28:15Mr.
28:16Mr.
28:17Mr.
28:17Mr.
28:21Mr.
28:48Mr.
28:55Mr.
28:57Mr.
29:09Mr.
29:27Mr.
29:31Mr.
29:44Mr.
29:51Mr.
30:12Mr.
30:26Mr.
30:40Mr.
30:41Mr.
31:00Mr.
31:12Mr.
31:16Mr.
31:16Mr.
31:16Mr.
31:16Mr.
31:16Mr.
31:16Mr.
31:16Mr.
31:16Mr.
31:16Mr.
31:16Mr.
31:16Mr.
31:18Mr.
31:28Mr.
31:28a man, a poste, was found dead in the Panzerdenkungslauch,
31:35who was in the night as a guard poste.
31:42After he was transported back to the back,
31:46he was able to do that.
32:00Von Manstein was ordered to form a new army group, Army Group Don.
32:08This scratch formation included the 6th Army
32:11and the elements of the 4th Panzer Army,
32:14which were also trapped at Stalingrad.
32:18Outside of the Russian siege lines,
32:21the relief force was made up of those parts of the 4th Panzer Army
32:25not trapped inside the ring at Stalingrad,
32:29supported by the remnants of the badly mauled Romanian forces.
32:35Despite the fact that this force was obviously too weak for the task,
32:40something had to be attempted.
32:44The orders issued to General Holt, in charge of the 4th Panzer Army,
32:49were to bring the enemy attacks to a standstill
32:53and recaptured the positions previously occupied.
32:58The other element of Von Manstein's strategy
33:01involved an attack by the mobile elements of the beleaguered 6th Army,
33:07who were ordered to break out westwards
33:09to meet the advancing 4th Panzer Army.
33:13When both assault forces met,
33:16they would provide a corridor
33:18through which the remnants of the 6th Army,
33:20still engaged in Stalingrad,
33:22could be reinforced.
33:25Von Manstein's problems began even before his forces could attack the Russians.
33:32The reinforcements,
33:34which would give Army Group Don its only hope
33:37against vastly superior Russian numbers,
33:39failed to arrive.
33:43The 4th Panzer Army was forced to launch the offensive alone.
33:50Worse still,
33:52the Russian strength in the area was increasing.
33:55Hans Zost remembers vividly the sight of Russian forces
33:59streaming towards him across the steppe.
34:02The Russians were coming into shapes.
34:05You have to imagine,
34:07they had a Panzergraben,
34:09and then from the north,
34:15from Stalingrad,
34:16there were Russian divisions
34:18to thousands,
34:20to ten thousands of people,
34:22black and white,
34:23the earth of people.
34:25The Russians fought not with material,
34:27but with people.
34:28And we had a couple of of them,
34:32but the other one was material.
34:33That was one of the fatal situations that they had ever in the war.
34:42And we experienced then
34:44on 4.12. 1942,
34:47that the Russian with a Panzer brigade
34:50attacked,
34:51to split this castle in two parts.
34:58And then there were 4 days
35:01in peace.
35:02And then there were 4 days
35:03And after 4 days
35:03he tried to do it again
35:04with an infantry division,
35:08which was also in the attack.
35:10the attack was also close to the enemy.
35:12We shot a large number of Panzers
35:14and so on the end
35:16and so on the end
35:17the mission was ended.
35:28Against all odds,
35:30by December the 17th,
35:33Hort's Panzers had reached a position
35:35only 35 miles short of Stalingrad.
35:39Their presence had already forced sections
35:42of the Red Army surrounding the city
35:44to break away from the siege
35:46to block the advance.
35:49By December the 19th,
35:52the relief force had gained another 5 miles
35:55and was just 30 miles
35:57from making contact with the 6th Army.
36:04Inside the pocket,
36:06encouraging rumours spread among the trapped army
36:09that help was at hand.
36:12Men, weakened by hunger
36:14and weeks of constant fighting,
36:17gained a new will to resist.
36:19They held on doggedly,
36:21straining their senses
36:23for the first signs of Hort's relieving Panzers.
36:29Wir lagen ja an der Südwest-Ecke
36:33und wir haben so etwa um den 20. Dezember rum
36:38den Kanonendonner von der Armee Hort gehört.
36:42Und da haben wir natürlich alle aufgeatmet.
36:46Ich bekam auch als Leiter des Chefarztes der Sanitätskommunie den Auftrag,
36:53mich auf einen Ausbruch bzw. vorzubereiten,
36:58damit wir dort mit unseren Verwundeten
37:01so weit als möglich rausgehen konnten.
37:03Das war natürlich eine sehr harte Sache,
37:07denn alle waren nicht transportfähig.
37:10Einer musste also da bleiben.
37:15By mid-December,
37:17the river Volga had frozen solid
37:19so that the Russians were able to build a road across it.
37:25The Russians could supply their forces in Stalingrad with food,
37:29with fuel to keep warm,
37:31with ammunition to keep fighting.
37:41By then, the Germans were cut off from most of their supplies
37:45and as a result,
37:48each soldier was living on a couple of ounces of bread
37:51and half an ounce of sugar a day,
37:54not enough to stay healthy.
37:58At that level of consumption,
38:00the human body becomes very vulnerable to disease.
38:03and under those conditions of extreme cold,
38:08frostbite was another serious threat.
38:13The German soldiers started to die of starvation.
38:18Some were eating so little
38:20that they had no resistance to disease
38:22and had contracted typhus or diphtheria
38:26and were covered in lice.
38:28And what was the most important was?
38:34The German soldiers had to be used to be used to be used to been
38:48When we came to the Russian homes, we had to go to Stannigrad.
38:55We had to go to Stannigrad.
38:57We had to go to Stannigrad.
39:00We had to go to Stannigrad.
39:00We had to go to Stannigrad.
39:01We had to go to Stannigrad.
39:08Von Manstein urgently requested Hitler to allow the 6th Army to retreat towards him,
39:14and bring the Russians under fire from the east and west.
39:20Once the German forces met,
39:23then the 3,000 tons of supplies assembled behind the 4th Panzer Army
39:28could be pushed through to those retreating from the city.
39:33It would be a desperate gamble for the 6th Army.
39:37Only 100 of its tanks remained operational,
39:41and these held sufficient fuel for a journey of 20 miles or less.
39:47The physical ability of the half-starved troops under Paulus
39:52to mount any sort of mobile campaign was also questionable.
40:00Faced with these risks,
40:02and in possession of previous orders from Hitler to stand firm,
40:07Paulus did not attempt to break out.
40:10He doomed the majority of the quarter of a million soldiers under his command
40:15to a slow and painful death.
40:20Paulus did not want to come out.
40:22Paulus did not want to come out.
40:22Paulus did not give the Kessel preis.
40:23We are here.
40:24So like the Führer has been warned.
40:26That was a jammer.
40:30It was a shame.
40:32It was a shame for us.
40:33It was possible.
40:36It would happen.
40:37It was possible.
40:38It could have agreed upon it,
40:39but the group didn't come back to the front of the group
40:44but they wouldn't be reasonable.
40:46It would have been more and more.
40:47The only option in that time
40:49it would have been the chance
40:50to be able to move back to the front of the group from the south
40:52to Staliengrat,
40:53and that we would have to move back to the front of the group.
41:01Manstein, in his own memoirs, went to great lengths to suggest that Paulus had the option
41:07to break out from the pocket and hadn't taken it.
41:12In reality, Manstein had authorised the launch of Operation Winter Storm, which was intended
41:18to be a relief operation.
41:21It was intended to get to the pocket and resupply the army.
41:44Paulus was briefed to break out on receipt of the codename Thunderclap.
41:49Manstein never actually issued that codename.
41:54It is therefore unfair to suggest that Paulus had freedom of movement.
42:01Hitler had made it clear that Paulus didn't have freedom of movement.
42:06Paulus was carrying out his orders to the letter.
42:11Manstein had a book written about it.
42:13He had often asked if he was against the orders of Hitler's orders.
42:19That is of course a very precarious story.
42:23Paulus was in the same situation.
42:25If he broke out, it would cost him a bit.
42:31That was not the case of the Führer's orders.
42:37That was not for a normal soldier.
42:41But on the other side, there were also Fälle, where the German generals said,
42:48here I can't get rid of them.
42:50There was the former commander of the 6th Panzer, the Höppner.
42:56He had this error against Hitler.
43:16Christmas 1942 for the men trapped inside the pocket was particularly poignant.
43:23Plötzlich war bloß der Kanonendonner weg.
43:26Und ich persönlich bekam die offizielle Mitteilung, Ausbruch abgeblasen.
43:32Ich habe es nicht weiter erzählt, denn das war kurz vor Weihnachten.
43:36Und wir haben daher noch ein relativ gutes Weihnachtsfest gefeiert mit den restlichen Verwundeten.
43:43Denn vorher hatten wir etwa, um den 20. rum, etwa 300 Verwundete über den Flugplatz Pitomnik ausfliegen lassen können.
43:54Und waren nur noch jetzt ein relativ kleiner Hauptverbandplatz mit so etwa 50 Verwundeten.
44:00Die so gut schon auf dem Bein waren, dass sie also bald wieder eingesetzt werden konnten.
44:07Wir haben also noch ein relativ gutes Weihnachten gefeiert.
44:11Ich persönlich allerdings wusste schon, was uns in etwa bevorstand.
44:16Pitomnik war der Hauptplatz für die Versorgung von Strandinger, habe ich vorhin schon gesagt.
44:20Und von da aus sind wir verliebt worden, als es in die Grüze ging, sind wir verliebt worden nach, ich
44:27glaube, Nitsitschieskaya.
44:29Und da haben wir Weihnachten gefeiert. Da lag nur eine 8-8 Flak-Batterie.
44:35Und wie wir gerade so versuchten, ein paar Weihnachten hier zu singen, hieß Alarm, die Russen kommen.
44:39Da war ein russischer Panzer am Anmarsch. Und unser Glück, dass die 8-8 da war.
44:43Die ist dann in Stellung gegangen, hat dann die Panzerhalter zunichte gemacht.
44:47Die hat so verballert, die kamen gar nicht von uns ran.
44:51Für die Männer der 6. Panzer Division, die vorbereiteten sich,
44:56um ihre eigenen Leben zu gewinnen, um Freiheit zu gewinnen, für ihre Comräder in den Pocken zu gewinnen,
45:00und sie haben sie gefeiert, um sie zu verabschieden.
45:03Weihnachten sie überrascht mit Emotionen.
45:06Die Kompanie trat an, und dann wurden Weihnachtslieder gesungen.
45:16Also, ein unbeschreibliches Gefühl.
45:20Sie müssen sich vorstellen, wir sind dem Dilemma entronnen.
45:25Unheilbar erst mal.
45:28Die Kameraden im Kessel sind nicht befreit worden.
45:32Und dann, Heilig Abend, der Gedanke an die Heimat, an die Frau, an die Kinder und so weiter.
45:43Also, unbeschreiblich.
45:47As Friedhelm Rohnig flew over the scene of devastation,
45:51the last act in the terrible tragedy was about to unfold.
46:18im Kessel Böse
46:31Learning
47:01Transcription by CastingWords
47:16CastingWords
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