general schmidt stalingrad

He was not able to walk anymore and was Other historians, such as Mitcham, agree: As the situation in Stalingrad deteriorated, Paulus's self-confidence declined, and he allowed himself (and 6th Army) to be more and more guided by his chief of staff, until Arthur Schmidt was virtually conducting the battle for the German side. 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. [2] On 25 October 1940 he served as chief of staff in 5th Army Corps, a position he held until 25 March 1942, when he moved to the Fhrerreserve at Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH). The northern pocket was tactically commanded by General Strekker while the southern pocket was commanded by General Roske. 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. However, after the attempted assassination of Hitler on 20 July 1944, he became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime while in Soviet captivity, joining the Soviet-sponsored National Committee for a Free Germany appealing to Germans to surrender. For us Germans, this is particularly indicative. "[11] Schmidt maintained that the army, which would adopt a "hedgehog" defence, must be resupplied, but that the situation was not yet so desperate as there were plenty of horses left that could serve as food. He 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. Worse than a tram! The phrase Manstein is coming! was still on everyones lips. They were all unwashed and hungry and they smelt to high heaven! The area around the department store had by then come under the full control of Soviet infantry and Wehrmacht soldiers were clearing sectors that had been mined. It formed part of the German Third Army that enacted the attack on France and Belgium in August 1914 as part of the pre-war Schlieffen Plan. Armee. Soviet soldiers, who seized the headquarters of Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus. 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 . [1] On 19 January, Major Thiel was sent by VIII Air Corps to assess the runway at Gumrak and see whether further landings by Luftwaffe supply aircraft would be possible. He was a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union for twelve years, and was released following West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer's visit to Moscow in 1955. "[9] At Nizhne-Chirskaya on 22 November, Schmidt told 8th Air Corps's commander, General Martin Fiebig, that Sixth Army needed to be resupplied by air. The German commander, according to Laskins recollections, greeted the members of the delegation with a sentence in broken Russian: Field Marshal of the German Army Paulus renders himself prisoner to the Red Army. He apologized that, since his new rank had only been conferred on him on January 30, his new uniform wasnt ready and he was compelled to appear in his colonel-generals uniform. Soviet and German soldiers who just a few hours earlier had been firing on each other stood calmly next to one another in the courtyard holding their guns in their hands or slung on their shoulder. The dispatch came early this morningit was the last one.'. Only if that happens is there a chance of the war going well for Germany. Diese Seite wurde zuletzt am 24. Mrz 1942 Chef des Stabes des V. Armeekorps der Wehrmacht. Arthur Schmidt (25 October 1895 - 5 November 1987) was an officer in the German military from 1914 to 1943. Its appalling pronounced Paulus somberly. But the city held, aided by the very destruction heaped on it by the Luftwaffe and Nazi tanks and artillery. Captured German generals before meeting with commander of the 64th Soviet Army general N. Shumilov. 'One can't help feeling it's an invitation to suicide. Am 6. 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. [1] Am 17. Everyone knows that our nation used to have great military experts, known all over the world, such as Clausewitz, Moltke the Elder, Schlieffen. He remained there until 1955, when a visit to Moscow by West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer led to his release, together with the remaining high-ranking German prisoners.[35]. Februar 1957 in Dresden-Oberloschwitz) war ein deutscher Heeresoffizier (ab 1943 Generalfeldmarschall) und im Zweiten Weltkrieg Oberbefehlshaber der 6. Arthur Schmidt (* 25. 26, https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arthur_Schmidt_(Offizier)&oldid=219508932. He was a First Lieutenant in the 71 st Infantry Division that spearheaded the attack into Stalingrad in September 1942. Click here to find out more. 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]. In 1942, Paulus was given command of the 6th Army despite his lack of field experience. 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. Panzerkorps war diary and its annexes. The Soviet units and subunits already there were to contain the enemy until its arrival. But I don't think I remained in this state for very long. The Field Marshal was lying on an iron bed without a uniform, in just his shirt, recalled Ilchenko. 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. Newspaper clippings about Friedrich Paulus, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Friedrich_Paulus&oldid=1149650806, This page was last edited on 13 April 2023, at 15:20. (In fact, he went on to appoint another seven field marshals during the last two years of the war.) It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked . He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves . It now seemed more impossible than ever to act against an order of the High Command or Army Group.[17]. The following month he was named deputy chief of the German General Staff (Oberquartiermeister I). I was taken by surprise" in conversation with Marshal Voronov. He remained in that post until May 1939, when he was promoted to major general and became chief of staff for the German Tenth Army, with which he saw service in Poland. was the 01 of 6. [18], Paulus, a Roman Catholic, was opposed to suicide. Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, General Arthur Schmidt and Wilhelm Adam, adjutant to the 6th Army commander. [29] The signal sent from Sixth Army HQ on the evening of 30 January, that stated that soldiers were "listening to the national anthem for the last time with arms raised in the German salute", was, according to Beevor, much more likely to have been written by Schmidt than by Paulus. In 1953, Paulus moved to East Germany, where he worked in military history research. 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. Nachdem er anstelle von Paulus im Keller des Kaufhauses Univermag die bergabeverhandlungen gefhrt und die Kapitulation der 6. [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. Get the week's best stories straight to your inbox. Hitler expected Paulus to commit suicide,[3] repeating to his staff that there was no precedent of a German field marshal ever being captured alive. We must hold them here to the last so that the eastern front can be stabilized. There, he would be interrogated by the Army commander Lt-Gen Mikhail Shumilov and the Don Front commander Lt-Gen Konstantin Rokossovsky. The units craved encouraging news, recalled an officer of the 6th Army's intelligence section, Joachim Wieder. Following his release, Schmidt remained bitterly hostile to those German officers who had co-operated with the Soviets in the National Committee for a Free Germany. So war er von Oktober 1940 bis 25. The negotiators were met by the commander of the Wehrmachts 71st Infantry Division, Maj-Gen Friedrich Roske, and the 6th Armys chief of staff, Gen. Arthur Schmidt. Schmidt, confident of his own abilities, put many backs up within Sixth Army headquarters, although he also had his supporters. Hitler implied that if Paulus allowed himself to be taken alive, he would shame Germany's military history.[16]. When presented with the commander of 51st Corps General Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach's 25 November memorandum to Paulus, detailing plans for a breakout, Schmidt said: "We don't have to break the head of the Fhrer for him, and neither does General von Seydlitz have to break the head of [General Paulus]. Several hours later, accompanied by several colonels and lieutenant-colonels, Maj-Gen Ivan Laskin, chief of staff of the 64th Army, came down to the basement. Tired of waiting for Friedrich Paulus himself to finally appear, the Soviet commanders went into his room. [13], The decision not to negotiate with the Soviet envoys who bore an ultimatum to Paulus on 8 and 9 January 1943, was, for example, made by Schmidt, not Paulus, as Colonel Wilhelm Adam told one of the envoys, Captain Nikolay Dyatlenko, during his post-battle interrogation. [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. Schmidt joined the army as a one-year volunteer on 10 August 1914, attaining the rank of Leutnant on 8 May 1915. [30] When the forces defending Sixth Army HQ surrendered on the morning of 31 January, Schmidt discussed surrender terms with officers from General Shumilov's HQ, while Paulus waited unaware in a room next door. German officers who flew out of the Stalingrad However, suicide rearguard regiments put up the usual hopeless and violent last stand battles in the streets. But how shockingly different their external appearance was! recalled Wilhelm Adam, adjutant to the 6th Army commander. [31] Schmidt, together with Paulus and Colonel Adam, were taken to Don Front HQ at Zavarykino, where they were interrogated. He told the journalist to tell the wives and mothers that their husbands and sons were well. 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. 139142; other examples are Allen and Muratoff's The Russian Campaigns of 19411943, published in 1944[5] and Peter Margaritis (2019). The Germans had already had the successful experience of using an air bridge to resupply the 100,000-strong II Army Corps cut off near Demyansk at the beginning of the same year and successfully releasing it from its trap after several months of encirclement. If using any of Russia Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material. Pages in category "German commanders at the Battle of Stalingrad" The following 25 pages are in this category, out of 25 total. Mai 1942 Chef des Generalstabes der von Friedrich Paulus befehligten 6. We were in frenzied spirits and, had it made sense, we would have been shouting Hoorah! We were firing at every target that appeared, operating our machine guns to their very limit The Russian infantry dispersed in all directions; they must have thought we were madmen, is how 1st Lieutenant Horst Scheibert remembered the launch of Operation Winter Storm that aimed to break through to Friedrich Pauluss 6th Army encircled at Stalingrad. "[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. The anti-tank gunners (anti-tank rifle squads) fought to the last round, to the last grenade. Dyatlenko was born in 1914 in the village of Kulichka in the Lebedin region, in present-day Sumy Oblast, Ukraine. 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. This website uses cookies. He was, in any case, a defender of a united and sovereign Germany. Dr. Karl Uhrmacher and the 6. Then they left the room. Once again, Hitler rejected Paulus' request out of hand, and ordered him to hold Stalingrad to the death. The following excerpt covers the last two days in Stalingrad as Adam began to have doubts about the Chief of Staff to the 6th Army, Lieutenant-General Schmidt: Was Lieutenant-General Schmidt playing a double game? 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. [citation needed], Many English-language sources and publications from the 1940s to the present day give Paulus' family name the prefix "von". He lived out the rest of his life in Dresden. He was not able to walk anymore and was brought to the divisional doctor, Oberstarzt Dr. Karl Uhrmacher (missing in Stalingrad since end January 1943). [21]. Armee war diary and its annexes. Other historians, such as Mitcham, agree: As the situation in Stalingrad deteriorated, Paulus's self-confidence declined, and he allowed himself (and 6th Army) to be more and more guided by his chief of staff, until Arthur Schmidt was virtually conducting the battle for the German side. But it is a misconception and dangerous idea that the age of nations is over simply because a power, the United States, relies on this position so that it can bend over and dominate other nations at the lowest cost to it. Armee unterzeichnet hatte, geriet Schmidt am 31. ", "Battle of Stalingrad a summary History in an Hour", " . : (02/07/1954)". Manstein's forces were unable to reach Stalingrad on their own and their efforts were eventually halted due to Soviet offensives elsewhere on the front.[12]. It was involved in heavy action against the French VIII Cavalry Corps and fought in Belgium at Namur on 23-24 August and again at St. Quentin. [14], On 7 January 1943 General Konstantin Rokossovsky, commander of the Red Army on the Don front, called a cease-fire and offered Paulus' men generous surrender terms: normal rations, medical treatment for the ill and wounded, permission to retain their badges, decorations, uniforms and personal effects. Most significantly, he promoted Paulus to field marshal. Hitler expected the success to be repeated here and ordered Paulus to hold on in Stalingrad, while getting essential food, weapons and ammunition supplied by air. Stalingrad was going to fall - if not in August 1942 then certainly in September. 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. Stalin himself was pessimistic. Paulus did not request to evacuate the city when the counter-offensive began. 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. On the afternoon of 22 November, Schmidt flew with Paulus to the new Sixth Army HQ at Gumrak. Believing that an attempt to break the encirclement would be made here, the Soviet command attached special importance to the sector and intensively reinforced it. 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. It was some time before I could break out of the maze of thoughts and strange dreams that depressed me so greatly. The last German success in Operation Winter Storm was reaching the Myshkova River 48 km from Stalingrad on December 19. He later acted as a witness for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials. Heavy fighting broke out near the hamlet of Verkhnekumsky, where the Soviet forces managed to resist the Germans for about five days, thus winning precious time. Our soldiers were not beaten, let alone shot. brought to the divisional doctor, Oberstarzt Dr. 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.. That danger is real. I was going to get up quietly when someone knocked at the door. [15] Paulus and Schmidt started planning for the breakout that evening, despite receiving another message from Hitler that they must stand firm and await relief. That would be a Napoleonic ending." As part of his communication, Rokossovsky advised Paulus that he was in an impossible situation. He was told that "The Luftwaffe doesn't have enough aircraft." 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. Establishing good neighborly relations with the countries that surround us from east and west is crucial for our national existence. In dieser Funktion wurde er am 1. January 1943). Following his release, Schmidt remained bitterly hostile to those German officers who had co-operated with the Soviets in the National Committee for a Free Germany. [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. 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. As part of his last will and testament, his body was transported to Baden-Baden, West Germany, to be buried at the Hauptfriedhof (main cemetery)[24] next to his wife, who had died eight years earlier in 1949, not having seen her husband since his departure for the Eastern Front in the summer of 1942. Er wurde am 15. said the Soviet general through his interpreter. [2] On 25 October 1940 he served as chief of staff in 5th Army Corps, a position he held until 25 March 1942, when he moved to the Fhrerreserve at Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH). Snow fell from our vehicle tracks. Thus, another prominent and experienced German politician stressed that a final implementation of the EDC agreement would be dangerous for the German nation. [37] He died in Karlsruhe on 5 November 1987. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Stalingrad pocket to, received orders to They were all armed, some with weapons in their hands, some with them over their shoulders. The Soviets held higher ground to the west, meaning that Sixth Army would be exposed to their guns if it attempted to break out. [21] Of the 91,000 German prisoners taken at Stalingrad, half had died on the march to Siberian prison camps, and nearly as many died in captivity; only about 6,000 survived and returned home.[b]. [10] He re-emphasised that before Sixth Army could break out to the south: "We must have fuel and ammunition delivered by the Luftwaffe. The general feared that, deprived of their armored strike force, the slow-moving bulk of his troops would simply be ground into dust by the Red Army in the freezing steppe. Hitler responded by showering a raft of field promotions by radio on Paulus' officers to build up their spirits and bolster their will to hold their ground. Behrs instructions were to ask high command ordered him not to fly back into Fortress Stalingrad. Paulus claimed that "I didn't surrender. 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]. The German soldiers - ragged, in thin greatcoats over threadbare uniforms, as thin as skeletons - presented emaciated figures exhausted half to death, with sunken, unshaved features. His final plan was to have two Stork aircraft towed by larger aircraft to Stalingrad, land and pick him up, then fly out of the pocket back to German lines. The German 4 posts Page 1 of 1 Paulus didnt greet us but he sat up. Paulus remained absolutely firm in obeying the orders he had been given. 'Prepare yourself for departure. German soldiers pushing a Junkers-52 aircraft through snow at the captured Soviet airfield of Pitomnik during the Battle of Stalingrad. He was allowed to move to the German Democratic Republic in 1953, two years before the repatriation of the remaining German POWs. Here is a man who sees 50,000 or 60,000 of his soldiers die defending themselves bravely to the end. [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. Unwashed, with unkempt beards, they wore comical-looking makeshift snow boots and were wrapped in towels and womens headscarves. German hopes for the rescue of the encircled grouping were finally dashed by the Soviet Operation Little Saturn that started on December 16. 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. [23], From 1953 to 1956, Paulus lived in Dresden, East Germany, where he worked as the civilian chief of the East German Military History Research Institute. [16] However, on 24 November Sixth Army received a further Fhrer order relayed from Army Group B, ordering them to stand firm. [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. On that frosty morning in Stalingrad, it dawned on all the men of the Red Army and the overwhelming majority of the German soldiers that this was the beginning of the end for them and the start of our Victory.. that it was the best to fly him out of the . Paulus and his staff were captured on the morning of 31 January 1943. These characteristics of Paulus and Schmidt would prove fatal to the trapped garrison of Stalingrad.

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