'Meeting The Victors', Sputnik Magazine, 1968, USSR; (English-language article). have Handlungsfreiheit (freedom of action). It was some time before I could break out of the maze of thoughts and strange dreams that depressed me so greatly. In comparison . Street fighting was still under way in the center of Stalingrad when German officers, accompanied by Soviet commanding officers, set off in vehicles to order their units to cease firing. Behr had an important task once he was free of [2] On 26 January 1942 he was awarded the German Cross in Gold.[3]. "[11] Schmidt maintained that the army, which would adopt a "hedgehog" defence, must be resupplied, but that the situation was not yet so desperate as there were plenty of horses left that could serve as food. Friedrich Paulus - Wikipedia But it was precisely during those days, when everyone was still waiting, believing and hoping, that the approaching formations tasked with releasing the 6th Army from its encirclement were halted and then pushed back by Russian forces without reaching their objective.. It would have had to go out to meet the 4th Panzer Army, while fighting on all four sides as if forming a square, Erich von Manstein wrote in his memoirs, Lost Victories. During his captivity, according to General Max Pfeffer, Paulus said, "I have no intention of shooting myself for this Bohemian corporal." Armee unterzeichnet hatte, geriet Schmidt am 31. List of important officers and commanders of the German Wehrmacht, the Russian Red Army, Romanian Army, Italian army and Hungarian Army in the Battle of Stalingrad . Paulus radioed Hitler once again for permission. It has been suggested that much of the reason for Schmidt's ascendancy over Paulus lay in the fact that, unlike Paulus, Schmidt was a committed Nazi, and Paulus, afraid of Hitler and conscious of his responsibility for Sixth Army's catastrophic position, saw Schmidt as a cipher for the Fhrer whom he could placate. [12] All the while, Paulus remained silent; the only time he spoke during the conference "was to agree with his chief of staff".[13]. Realizing their blunder, the Soviet military command ordered the 2nd Guards Army under the command of Lieutenant-General Rodion Malinovsky to the battle zone. [21]. Arthur Schmidt (soldier) - Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core Paulus relied greatly on his judgement, and as a result he played a large, some say an excessive, role in determining the course of events later that year. [23] When General Hans-Valentin Hube flew into the Kessel [the encircled pocket of Axis forces in Stalingrad] on the morning of 9 January with Hitler's message to stand firm, "this strengthened General Schmidt's intransigent position at Sixth Army's headquarters." Hitler expected it. Click here to find out more. [4] The British historian and author Antony Beevor offers the following description of Schmidt: [He was] a slim, sharp-featured and sharp-tongued staff officer from a Hamburg mercantile family. Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, General Arthur Schmidt and Wilhelm Adam, adjutant to the 6th Army commander. While south of Stalingrad, some Soviet soldiers were holding back the onslaught from Hoths tanks, northwest of the city, in the area of the great bend in the Don River, their fellow servicemen were making short work of the Italian and Romanian divisions: They broke through the enemy front lines, advanced 340 km inside them and reached the rear of Army Group Don itself. Armee. The German After all the formalities had been settled and the Field Marshal had received guarantees of his personal safety, he was led out of the basement, along with his staff officers. I had the official seal with me. Get the week's best stories straight to your inbox. Aggressively ideological, his aggression would translate into a passive kind as he functioned as his chief's alter ego [] As late as mid-December, Paulus, even as illusions had all but vanished, would still not contradict Schmidt when he presented his tragically absurd hypotheses to visitors to the besieged and starving Sixth Army.[24]. He attained the rank of Generalleutnant during World War II, and is best known for his role as the Sixth Army's chief of staff in the Battle of Stalingrad in 194243, during the final stages of which he became its de facto commander, playing a large role in executing Hitler's order that it stand firm despite being encircled by the Red Army. Later, Paulus briefly commanded a motorized battalion (193435) before being named chief of staff for Panzer headquarters in October 1935. He is Lieutenant General Mikhail Malinin, chief of staff for the Stalingrad front and one of the men responsible for putting into operation plans for the encirclement of the German 6th Army. After the Soviet troops opened intensive fire from machine guns and mortars on the building at about six oclock in the morning, the shooting from the German side stopped. He also criticized United States foreign policy as aggressive and called for a reconciliation between the Germans and the French: American policy today calls itself "power politics". Even though it was obvious the Sixth Army was in an untenable position, the German Army High Command rejected Paulus' request, stating, "Capitulation out of the question. "[15], After a heavy Soviet offensive overran the last emergency airstrip in Stalingrad on 25 January, the Soviets again offered Paulus a chance to surrender. Schmidt was appointed chief of staff to General Friedrich Paulus in Sixth Army on 15 May 1942, replacing Colonel Ferdinand Heim after the counter-attack against Marshal Semyon Timoshenko at the Second Battle of Kharkov. Nevertheless, the hope of a restoration of freedom and of deliverance from death or captivity would have given the troops the strength to make the impossible possible!. He is not here. [14][15] Schmidt contacted his corps commanders and, in defiance of Hitler's order to stand firm, they agreed with Schmidt that a breakout to the south was desirable. On December 12, as part of Operation Winter Storm, the German Army Group Hoth (named after its commander, Colonel-General Hermann Hoth) launched a surprise attack and crushed the Red Army's. Thus, another prominent and experienced German politician stressed that a final implementation of the EDC agreement would be dangerous for the German nation. wounded, in the evening of 19 January 1943 - ordered to, became Paulus surrendered in Stalingrad on 31 January 1943,[a] the same day on which he was informed of his promotion to field marshal by Hitler. [4] The British historian and author Antony Beevor offers the following description of Schmidt: Januar 2022 um 19:24 Uhr bearbeitet. After he concluded that they would not, telling both Schmidt and Paulus so, Paulus reprimanded him for the original promise that air supply to Sixth Army would be possible, asking him: "Can you imagine that the soldiers fall upon a horse cadaver, split open its head, and devour the brain raw?" After a leave of absence due to illness, he joined the Alpenkorps as a staff officer, serving in France, Romania and Serbia. Dyatlenko had no doubt that Schmidt was "the eyes and hand of the Nazi Party" in the Sixth Army, because captured officers reported that "Schmidt was commanding the Army and even Paulus himself."[21]. The Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943) was fought during the Second World War between Nazi Germany led by Adolf Hitler and the Soviet Union led by Joseph Stalin. [16] However, on 24 November Sixth Army received a further Fhrer order relayed from Army Group B, ordering them to stand firm. [6] Many false reports of the massing of Soviet forces were received from the Romanian sector, so when Stck radioed at 5 a.m. on 19 November that an offensive (marking the start of Operation Uranus, the Soviet encirclement of Axis forces) was about to begin, Schmidt, who was furious when disturbed by false alarms, was not informed,[7] although he was awoken twenty minutes later when it became clear that this was no false alarm. Paulus said he had not surrendered and refused to order the remaining German forces to surrender. Only if that happens is there a chance of the war going well for Germany. It has been suggested that much of the reason for Schmidt's ascendancy over Paulus lay in the fact that, unlike Paulus, Schmidt was a committed Nazi, and Paulus, afraid of Hitler and conscious of his responsibility for Sixth Army's catastrophic position, saw Schmidt as a cipher for the Fhrer whom he could placate. There, they encountered the freshly-formed Soviet 2nd Guards Army that had finally arrived on the scene. Once again, Hitler rejected Paulus' request out of hand, and ordered him to hold Stalingrad to the death. We Germans have seen that in the 20th century, such "power politics" that a strong and rich country seeks to pursue at the expense of other countries is doomed to failure. Evacuating their HQ at Golubinsky amid a bonfire of burning files and stores, they flew to Nizhne-Chirskaya that same day, just missing Hitler's order that "Sixth Army stand firm in spite of danger of temporary encirclement." 1955 wurde er aus der Gefangenschaft entlassen. Army It was the HQ commander. [37] He died in Karlsruhe on 5 November 1987. The German troops closest positions to the encircled 6th Army were in the area of the Chir River (just 40 km away). As a result of the talks, the southern pocket of German troops, commanded by General Roske, was to capitulate. According to Beevor: [Soviet commanders] were increasingly convinced that Paulus was virtually a prisoner in his own headquarters, guarded by his chief of staff [Schmidt]. Januar 2022 um 19:24, Infanterie-Regiment Frst Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau (1. A huge Soviet counteroffensive, planned by generals G.K. Zhukov, A.M. Vasilevsky, and Nikolay Nikolayevich Voronov, was launched on Nov. 19-20, 1942, in two spearheads, north and south of the German salient whose tip was at Stalingrad. jaundice. The Soviets held higher ground to the west, meaning that Sixth Army would be exposed to their guns if it attempted to break out. Field Marshal Paulus in Captivity: NKVD Files - All World Wars Paulus awoke and sat up. Hitler, leery of the reasons for Paulus' transfer to Nizhne-Chirskaya, orders him to move his HQ again. [22] The envoys were even fired on; Paulus denied that he had ordered this, so it is possible that Schmidt might have issued the order. On the order of the brigade commander, Colonel Ivan Burmakov, a group of negotiators led by Senior Lieutenant Fyodor Ilchenko headed for the department store building. While in Soviet captivity during the war, Paulus became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime and joined the Soviet-sponsored National Committee for a Free Germany. Im Zweiten Weltkrieg hatte Schmidt mehrere Stabspositionen inne. But as soon as a tank passed over an entrenchment, our men - soldiers, sergeants and officers - got up again and opened fire on the departing armored vehicles.. Gaunt, pale and emaciated, the commander of the Wehrmachts 6th Army looked like a hunted animal to the Soviet military commanders. We must hold them here to the last so that the eastern front can be stabilized. German hopes for the rescue of the encircled grouping were finally dashed by the Soviet Operation Little Saturn that started on December 16. My God, what a contrast between the two sides! The units craved encouraging news, recalled an officer of the 6th Army's intelligence section, Joachim Wieder. The appearance of the Red Army soldiers seemed symbolic. Then they left the room. He was a First Lieutenant in the 71 st Infantry Division that spearheaded the attack into Stalingrad in September 1942. This is the precondition for collective security in Europe and at the same time for a happy future for our own nation. Category : German commanders at the Battle of Stalingrad [36], After Voikovo, Schmidt was held in the Lubyanka prison. However, the lack of food and ammunition, equipment losses and the deteriorating physical condition of the German troops gradually wore down the German defense. He was considered a promising officer; by the time World War II broke out he had been promoted to major general. According to Pois and Langer: [Paulus's] chief of staff, Arthur Schmidt, a committed National Socialist to the end, seemed to represent Hitler for Paulus, indeed, probably was Hitler at Stalingrad. When World War I began, Paulus' regiment was part of the thrust into France, and he saw action in the Vosges and around Arras in the autumn of 1914. What happened to the first German Field Marshal made prisoner?On January 31, 1943, in the basement of the Univermag department store, Field Marshal Paulus su. Even the best army is doomed to fail when it is required to perform impossible tasks, that is, when it is ordered to campaign against the national existence of other peoples.[23]. Interrogation of captured German officers led Soviet commanders to realise that, because of the toll of events on Paulus's nerves, Schmidt was the real commander of the defending forces. But the city held, aided by the very destruction heaped on it by the Luftwaffe and Nazi tanks and artillery. [34] Unlike many German prisoners of war, such as Paulus himself and von Seydlitz-Kurzbach, Schmidt refused to co-operate with the Soviets, despite the NKVD's attempt to ingratiate themselves by serving him caviar and champagne in a luxury railway coach. On 30 January, Paulus informed Hitler that his men were only hours from collapse. Almost 70% of deaths occurred in the winter of 1945-1946. Everyone knows that our nation used to have great military experts, known all over the world, such as Clausewitz, Moltke the Elder, Schlieffen. "[18], On 18 or 19 December, Major Eismann was sent by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein to brief Paulus and Schmidt on Operation Donnerschlag, Army Group Don's plan, not sanctioned by Hitler, for the Sixth Army to break out and incorporate itself in Manstein's Army Group. When I say that we Germans must focus above all on the unity and independence of Germany, on the affirmation of the vital national rights of our nation, I realize that in this way we are best serving the cause of peace, of international dtente and reconciliation between peoples. On 2 February 1943 the remainder of the Sixth Army capitulated. Lasting from August 1942 to February 1943, the Battle of Stalingrad was the largest battle of World War II and in the history of warfare. Arthur Schmidt (* 25. American diplomats in Moscow expected it. This policy can have no prospect of success unless it manages to stifle the national will of other peoples, to crush their independence. He died a few months later, in Dresden, on 1 February 1957, aged 66, exactly 14 years and one day after his surrender at Stalingrad. [4], Despite Lieutenant-Colonel Niemeyer's frank and pessimistic area briefings, Schmidt severely underestimated the build-up and capabilities of Soviet forces at Stalingrad following the initial Axis successes, a failing that he unlike Paulus subsequently did not attempt to excuse. The recently formed Army Group Don under the command of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, reinforced with divisions transferred from the North Caucasus and Western Europe, was tasked with opening a corridor to the city. Russians consider it to be one of the greatest battles of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict. We shall be back for you at 9.00. [19] Beevor states that it is unclear what happened at the meeting, except that Paulus, who still believed in the chain of command, refused to break out without a clear order to do so from a superior, something that the politically deft Manstein refused to give.[19][20]. The twin pincers of this counteroffensive struck the flanks of the German salient at points about 50 miles . He crossed the Meuse river at Dinant. flew out of the Hitler awarded the Knight's Cross to Schmidt on 6 January 1943 on the same day that Paulus signalled to General Kurt Zeitzler: "Army starving and frozen, have no ammunition and cannot move tanks any more" [25] and made him Generalleutnant on 17 January. [11] When told that this was impossible, he replied that "more than 10,000 wounded and the bulk of the heavy weapons and vehicles would have to be left behind. Paulus took part in the Poland and Low Countries campaigns, after which he was named deputy chief of the German Army General Staff. German officers who flew out of the Stalingrad pocket and became Georgy Lipskerov//DF/russiainphoto.ru, 3 reasons why the Red Army won the Battle of Stalingrad, How the Germans tried to rescue their troops at Stalingrad (PHOTOS), What did Stalingrad look like before World War II? The Soviet units and subunits already there were to contain the enemy until its arrival. Schmidt commented: Early on the 24th November, while Paulus and I were preparing the necessary measures for a breakout to the south, we received a 'Fhrer decision' from Army Group [] It said that the Sixth Army was to stay in Stalingrad and wait to be relieved. Doctor Generalstabarzt Dr. Otto Renoldi adviced And anyway, my new uniform will hardly be of any use to me now, the commander added with a wry smile. Analyse und Dokumentation einer Schlacht, in the evening of 13 January 1943 - ordered to, during the night of 19 and 20 January 1943 - I have in mind, first of all, France. For example: Mark Arnold-Forster's The World At War, companion volume to the documentary of the same name, Stein and Day, 1973, pp. They were all armed, some with weapons in their hands, some with them over their shoulders. [26] Schmidt addressed Thiel in the same vein: "[] here you come trying to justify the Luftwaffe, that has committed the worst treason, that has ever occurred in German history [] An entire army, this wonderful 6th Army, must go to the dogs like this. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Oktober 1895 in Hamburg; 5. These characteristics of Paulus and Schmidt would prove fatal to the trapped garrison of Stalingrad. "[27], Thyssen comments that both Paulus and Schmidt seemed to have forgotten Fiebig's statements on 21 and 22 November that the Luftwaffe would not be able to supply Sixth Army in the Kessel.[28]. Maybe since the last time we met - more than 10 years ago - our views on specific issues differed, but I know in general, through his writings, with what sense of responsibility, how restlessly he refused to align himself with the Federal Chancellor's European Defence Community policy. Battle of Stalingrad, (July 17, 1942-February 2, 1943), successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Russia, U.S.S.R., during World War II. 4 posts Page 1 of 1 I prepared for my last official duty. Paulus and I came separately to the same conclusion. Stalingrad - An Examination of Hitler's Decision to Airlift Ignoring the German officers halfhearted request to hand over their weapons, the Soviet negotiators started going down to the basement where Friedrich Paulus had his HQ. Interrogation of captured German officers led Soviet commanders to realise that, because of the toll of events on Paulus's nerves, Schmidt was the real commander of the defending forces. Adolf Hitler prohibited attempts to break out or capitulate, and German defence was gradually worn down. Arthur Schmidt (general) - Wikipedia [33], Of all the senior German officers held at Zavarykino, Schmidt was the most disliked by the Soviets; on one occasion he apparently reduced a mess waitress to tears during lunch, for which a Soviet officer, Lieutenant Bogomolov, made him apologise.
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