Survivors of Stalingrad: Eyewitness Accounts from the 6th Army, 1942-1943
Reinhold Busch
Language: English
Pages: 256
ISBN: 1848327668
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In November 1942 – in a devastating counter-attack from outside the city – Soviet forces smashed the German siege and encircled Stalingrad, trapping some 290,000 soldiers of the 6th Army inside. For almost three months, during the harshest part of the Russian winter, the German troops endured atrocious conditions. Freezing cold and reliant on dwindling food supplies from Luftwaffe air drops, thousands died from starvation, frostbite or infection if not from the fighting itself.
This important work reconstructs the grim fate of the 6th Army in full for the first time by examining the little-known story of the field hospitals and central dressing stations. The author has trawled through hundreds of previously unpublished reports, interviews, diaries and newspaper accounts to reveal the experiences of soldiers of all ranks, from simple soldiers to generals.
The book includes firsthand accounts of soldiers who were wounded or fell ill and were flown out of the encirclement; as well as those who fought to the bitter end and were taken prisoner by the Soviets. They reflect on the severity of the fighting, and reveal the slowly ebbing hopes for survival. Together they provide an illuminating and tragic portrait of the appalling events at Stalingrad.
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Soldiers lay around, mostly seriously wounded; I would say thousands! They lay here in the open air with the frozen dead: nobody bothered about them any more. The dead could not be buried. Nobody had the strength to dig into the deeply frozen earth. I lost my companion who had come with me from the HVP. All day long I did what I could to find something to eat. I almost always slept in the open. I did not want to return to the HVP. I was not always at the aerodrome: I saw aircraft which had been.
Counter-attack. The attack had to go through a valley with the support of 16th Panzer and the artillery. There was no snow on the ground, it was damp and there was little cover. Therefore we had to reverse our camouflage suits. This took over an hour. Then we started off – it went well at first, but we had to spend the night in the open with only blankets to protect us against the weather. I climbed up on a panzer, but left it very quickly because of the cold. Meanwhile the traffic over the.
Shambling companions sharing our fate, towards an uncertain future in captivity. When we met the first Russian, an officer, he slipped his long legs nimbly into the Kübelwagen without making us stop. Hooting the horn on the orders of this officer, we made much better progress, and we overtook the long columns of prisoners streaming north-east away from the city. After a few kilometres a little outside the city where the road forked our comfortable journey came to its end. The Russian made us.
Construct a defensive ring at the western boundary and dig trenches in order to resist Russian pressure. Our company had to pass a platoon of anti-tank guns with half-tracks under Sergeant Taubert on the way to the Northern Boundary. We never saw them again except for Taubert, whom I came across wounded at the end of the struggle in the cellar of a field hospital, a small heap of misery no longer responsive. Our company now experienced the first rationing of food: daily only 400 grams of bread.
Pilot baled out, hid out in the difficult terrain and was captured after an exchange of fire. All supporting weapons worked in association, were reliable and effective in action, the rocket launcher being used against identified troop concentrations. We had no latrines and even the colonel had to use the open field. When performing this duty one morning, a Russian troop laying field cables led by a lieutenant came towards us. We retired to the telephone bunker to put our trousers on and then.