Friedrich Paulus

Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus (23 September 1890 – 1 February 1957) was an officer in the German military from 1910 to 1945. He attained the rank of Generalfeldmarschall (field marshal) during World War II, and is best known for having commanded the Sixth Army's assault on Stalingrad during Operation Blue in 1942. The battle ended in disaster for Nazi Germany when approximately 270,000 soldiers of the Wehrmacht,Axis allies and Hilfswillige were encircled and defeated in a massive Soviet counterattack in November 1942, with casualties reaching as high as 740,000.

Paulus surrendered to Soviet forces in Stalingrad on 31 January 1943, a day after he was promoted to the rank of Generalfeldmarschall by Adolf Hitler. Hitler expected Paulus to commit suicide, citing the fact that there was no record of a German field marshal ever surrendering to enemy forces. While in Soviet captivity during the war Paulus became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime and joined the Russian-sponsored National Committee for a Free Germany. He was not released until 1953.

After leaving the university without a degree, he joined the 111th Infantry Regiment as an officer cadet in February 1910. He married Elena Rosetti-Solescu on 4 July, 1912.

When World War I began, Paulus's regiment was part of the thrust into France, and he saw action in the Vosges and around Arras in the autumn of 1914. After a leave of absence due to illness, he joined the Alpenkorps as a staff officer, serving in Macedonia, France and Serbia. By the end of the war, he was a captain.

After the Armistice, Paulus fought with the Freikorps in the east as a brigade adjutant. He remained in the scaled-down Reichswehr that came into being after the Treaty of Versailles and was assigned to the 13th Infantry Regiment at Stuttgart as a company commander. He served in various staff positions for over a decade (1921–1933) and then briefly commanded a motorized battalion (1934–1935) before being named chief of staff for the Panzer headquarters in October 1935, a new formation under Lutz that directed the training and development of the army's three panzer divisions.

In February 1938 Paulus was appointed Chef des Generalstabes to Guderian's new XVI Armeekorps (Motorisiert), which replaced Lutz's command. Guderian described him as ‘brilliantly clever, conscientious, hard working, original and talented’ but already had doubts about his decisiveness, toughness and lack of command experience. 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, the Netherlands and Belgium (by the latter two campaigns, the army had been renumbered as the Sixth Army).

Paulus was promoted to Lieutenant General in August 1940 and the following month he was named deputy chief of the German General Staff(OQu I). In that role he helped draft the plans for the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Paulus was promoted to General of the Armoured Troops and became commander of the German Sixth Army in January 1942 and led the drive on Stalingrad during that summer. Paulus' troops fought the defending Soviet troops holding Stalingrad over three months in increasingly brutal urban warfare. In November 1942, when the Soviet Red Army launched a massive counter-offensive, code named Operation Uranus, Paulus found himself surrounded by an entire Soviet Army Group.

Bust of Paulus, part of bigger statue but decapitated when he surrendered at Stalingrad

Paulus followed Adolf Hitler's orders to hold the Army's position in Stalingrad under all circumstances, despite the fact that he was completely surrounded by strong Russian formations. A relief effort by Army Group Don under Field Marshal Erich von Manstein failed in December, inevitably: insufficient force was available to challenge the Soviet forces encircling the German 6th Army, and Hitler refused to allow Paulus to break out of Stalingrad despite Manstein telling him it was the only way the effort would succeed. By this time, Paulus' remaining armour had only sufficient fuel for a 12-mile advance anyway. In any event, Paulus was refused permission to break out of the encirclement. Kurt Zeitzler, the newly appointed chief of the Army General Staff, eventually got Hitler to allow Paulus to break out—provided they held onto Stalingrad, an impossible task.

For the next two months, Paulus and his men fought on. However, the lack of ammunition, equipment attrition and deteriorating physical condition of the German troops prevented them from defending effectively against the Red Army. The battle was fought with terrible losses on both sides and great suffering.

Paulus (left), and his aides Col. Wilhelm Adam (middle) and Lt.-Gen. Arthur Schmidt(right), after their surrender in Stalingrad

On 8 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, and repatriation to any country they wished after the war. Rokossovsky also noted that Paulus was in a nearly impossible situation. By this time, there was no hope for Paulus to be relieved or supplied by air, and most of his men had no winter clothing. However, when Paulus asked Hitler for permission to surrender, Hitler rejected this request almost out of hand and ordered him to hold Stalingrad to the last man.

After a heavy Soviet offensive overran the last emergency airstrip in Stalingrad on 25 January, the Russians again offered Paulus a chance to surrender. Once again, Hitler ordered Paulus to hold Stalingrad to the death. On 30 January, Paulus informed Hitler that his men were hours from collapse and that he was no longer able to command them. Hitler responded by showering a raft of field promotions by radio on Paulus' officers to build up their spirits and steel their will to hold their ground. Most significantly, he promoted Paulus to field marshal. In deciding to promote Paulus, Hitler noted that there was no known record of aPrussian or German field marshal ever having surrendered. The implication was clear: Paulus was to commit suicide. If Paulus surrendered, he would shame Germany's military history.

Paulus' interrogation at Don Front HQ: General Rokossovsky, MarshalVoronov, translator Nikolay Dyatlenkoand Paulus (left to right)

Despite this, and to the disgust of Hitler, Paulus and his staff surrendered the next day, 31 January. On the 2 February 1943 the remainder of the Sixth Army capitulated. Upon finding out about Paulus' surrender, Hitler flew into a rage, and vowed never to appoint another field marshal again, though he would in fact go on to appoint another seven field marshals during the last two years of the war. Speaking about the surrender of Paulus, Hitler told his staff:

“ In peacetime Germany, about 18,000 or 20,000 people a year chose to commit suicide, even without being in such a position. Here is a man who sees 50,000 or 60,000 of his soldiers die defending themselves bravely to the end. How can he surrender himself to the Bolshevists?! ”

Paulus, a Roman Catholic, was opposed to suicide. During his captivity, according to General Pfeffer, Paulus said of Hitler's expectation: "I have no intention of shooting myself for this Bohemian corporal". Another general told the NKVD that Paulus had told him about his promotion to field marshal and said: "It looks like an invitation to commit suicide, but I will not do this favour for him." Paulus also forbade his soldiers from standing on top of their trenches in order to be shot by the enemy.

Although he at first refused to collaborate with the Soviets, after the attempted assassination of Hitler on 20 July 1944, Paulus became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime while in Soviet captivity, joining the Russian-sponsored National Committee for a Free Germany and appealing to Germans to surrender. He later acted as a witness for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials. He was released in 1953, two years before the repatriation of the remaining German POWs (mostly other Stalingrad veterans) who had been designated war criminals by the Soviets. Paulus settled in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

During the Nuremberg Trials, Paulus was asked about the Stalingrad prisoners by a journalist. Paulus told the journalist to tell the wives and mothers that their husbands and sons were well. Of the 91,000 German prisoners taken at Stalingrad, half had died on the march to Siberian prison camps, nearly as many died in captivity; only about 6,000 returned home.

From 1953 to 1956, he lived in Dresden, East Germany, where he worked as the civilian chief of the East German Military History Research Institute and not, as often wrongly described, as an inspector of police. In late 1956, he developed motor neuron disease and was eventually left paralyzed. He died in Dresden on 1 February 1957, exactly 14 years after he surrendered at Stalingrad. His body was brought for burial in Baden next to that of his wife, who had died in 1949 having not seen her husband since his surrender.

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Friedrich Paulus was born in Breitenau, Germany, on 23rd September 1890. The son of a administrator in a reform school, Paulus attempted to become an officer-cadet in the German Navy but was rejected because of his lack of aristocratic blood. After briefly studying law at the University of Munich he joined the German Army in 1910. The following year he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 3rd Baden Infantry Regiment.

On the outbreak of the First World War Paulus was adjutant of the III Battalion. In 1915 he was assigned to the staff of the 2nd Prussian Jaeger Regiment and two years later to the operations staff of the Alpine Corps. During the war he served on the Eastern Front and the Western Front.

Paulus remained in the army after the war and was appointed adjutant to the 14th Infantry Regiment at Konstanz. In 1922 he was given general staff training and the following year joined Army Group 2 at Kassel. From 1924 to 1927 he was a General Staff officer with Wehrkreis V at Stuttgart. One senior officer commented that Paulus was: "slow, but very methodical". Another complained that he "lacked decisiveness". However, he continued to be promoted and in 1930 he became a tactics instructor with the 5th Infantry Division.

In 1934 Paulus was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and appointed commander of Motor Transport Section 3. In September 1935, Paulus succeeded Heinz Guderian as chief of staff to the commander of Germany's Mechanized Forces. Considered to be an expert on motorized warfare, Paulus was promoted to major general and became director of training for Germany's four light divisions in 1939. This included two motorized infantry regiments, a reconnaissance regiment and a motorized artillery regiment.

Just before the outbreak of the Second World War Paulus became chief of staff of the 10th Army. Serving under General Walther von Reichenau, Paulus took part in the invasion of Poland in September 1939. This was followed by the Western Offensive in Belgiumand France.

In June 1940, Paulus was promoted to lieutenant general and three months later became deputy chief of the General Staff. He visited General Erwin Rommel in North Africa on a fact-finding tour. His report was highly critical of Rommel and the Deutsches Afrika Korps but this was not acted upon by Adolf Hitler.

Paulus then carried out a strategic survey on the Soviet Union for the proposed Operation Barbarossa. The main advice given by Paulus to Hitler was to make sure that after the invasion the Red Army did not retreat into the interior. For the campaign to be successful he argued for battles of encirclement. He also suggested that the main thrust should be made north of the Pripyat Marshes in order to capture Moscow.

In December, 1941, Hitler agreed to the suggestion made by Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau that Paulus should be given command of the 6th Army. Promoted to general, Paulus took up his appointment on 1st January 1942 and fought his first battle at Dnepropetrovsk in the Soviet Union. The advance of the 6th Army was halted by the Red Army and the following month Paulus was forced to order his men to move back in search of better defensive positions.

On 9th May 1942, General Semen Timoshenko, with 640,000 men, attacked the 6th Army at Volchansk. Paulus, seriously outnumbered, decided to move his troops back toward Kharkov. The 6th Army was rescued by General Paul von Kleist and his 1st Panzer Army when they struck Timoshenko's exposed southern flank on 17th May. Paulus was now able to launch a counter-attack on 20th May and by the end of the month all Soviet resistance had come to an end. A total of 240,000 Soviet soldiers were killed or captured and Paulus was awarded the Knights' Cross.

In the summer of 1942 Paulus advanced toward Stalingrad with 250,000 men, 500 tanks, 7,000 guns and mortars, and 25,000 horses. Progress was slow because fuel was rationed and Army Group A were given priority. At the end of July 1942, a lack of fuel brought Paulus to a halt at Kalach. It was not until 7th August that he had received the supplies needed to continue with his advance. Over the next few weeks his troops killed or captured 50,000 Soviet troops but on 18th August, Paulus, now only thirty-five miles from Stalingrad, ran out of fuel again.

When fresh supplies reached him, Paulus decided to preserve fuel by move forward with only his XIV Panzer corps. The Red Army now attacked the advance party and they were brought to a halt just short of Stalingrad. The rest of his forces were brought up and Paulus now circled the city. As his northern flank came under attack Paulus decided to delay the attack on the city until 7th September. While he was waiting the Luftwaffe bombed the city killing thousands of civilians.

As the German Army advanced into Stalingrad the Soviets fought for every building. The deeper the troops got into the city, the more difficult the street fighting became and casualties increased dramatically. The German tanks were less effective in a fortified urban area as it involved house-to-house fighting with rifles, pistols, machine-guns and hand grenades. The Germans had particularly problems with cleverly camouflaged artillery positions and machine-gun nests. The Soviets also made good use of sniper detachments deployed in the bombed out buildings in the city. On the 26th September the 6th Army was able to raise the swastika flag over the government buildings in Red Square but the street fighting continued.

Adolf Hitler now ordered Paulus to take Stalingrad whatever the cost to German forces. On the radio Hitler told the German people: "You may rest assured that nobody will ever drive us out of Stalingrad." When General Gustav von Wietersheim, commander of the XIV Panzer Corps, complained about the high casualty rates, Paulus replaced him with General Hans Hube. However, Paulus, who had lost 40,000 soldiers since entering the city, was running out of fighting men and on 4th October he made a desperate plea to Hitler for reinforcements.

A few days later five engineer battalions and a panzer division arrived in Stalingrad. Fighting a war of attrition, Joseph Stalin responded by ordering three more armies to the city. Soviet losses were much higher than those of the Germans, but Stalin had more men at his disposal than Paulus.

The heavy rains of October turned the roads into seas of mud and the 6th Army's supply conveys began to get bogged down. On 19th October the rain turned to snow. Paulus continued to make progress and by the beginning of November he controlled 90 per cent of the city. However, his men were now running short of ammunition and food. Despite these problems Paulus decided to order another major offensive on 10th November. The German Army took heavy casualties for the next two days and then the Red Army launched a counterattack Paulus was forced to retreat southward but when he reached Gumrak Airfield, Adolf Hitler ordered him to stop and stand fast despite the danger of encirclement. Hitler told him that Hermann Goering had promised that the Luftwaffe would provide the necessary supplies by air.

Senior officers under Paulus argued that they doubted if the scale of the airlift required could be achieved during a Russian winter. All of the corps commanders argued for a breakout before the Red Army were able to consolidate its positions. General Hans Hube told Paulus: "A breakout is our only chance." Paulus responded by saying that he had to obey Hitler's orders.

Throughout December the Luftwaffe dropped an average of 70 tons of supplies a day. The encircled German Army needed a minimum of 300 tons a day. The soldiers were put on one-third rations and began to kill and eat their horses. By 7th December the 6th Army were living on one loaf of bread for every five men.

Now aware that the 6th Army was in danger of being starved into surrender, Adolf Hitler ordered Field Marshal Erich von Manstein and the 4th Panzer Army to launch a rescue attempt. Manstein managed to get within thirty miles of Stalingrad but was then brought to a halt by the Red Army. On 27th December, 1942, Manstein decided to withdraw as he was also in danger of being encircled by Soviet troops.

In Stalingrad over 28,000 German soldiers had died in just over a month. With little food left Paulus gave the order that the 12,000 wounded men could no longer be fed. Only those who could fight would be given their rations. Erich von Manstein now gave the order for Paulus to make a mass breakout. Paulus rejected the order arguing that his men were too weak to make such a move.

On 30th January, 1943, Adolf Hitler promoted to Paulus to field marshal and sent him a message reminding him that no German field marshal had ever been captured. Hitler was clearly suggesting to Paulus to commit suicide but he declined and the following day surrendered to the Red Army. The last of the Germans surrendered on 2nd February.

The battle for Stalingrad was over. Over 91,000 men were captured and a further 150,000 had died during the siege. The German prisoners were forced marched to Siberia. About 45,000 died during the march to the prisoner of war camps and only about 7,000 survived the war.

Paulus was taken into custody and at first refused to cooperate with the Soviets. However, after he discovered that his friends, Erich Hoepner and Erwin von Witzleben, had been executed after the July Plot, he agreed to make anti-Nazi broadcasts. This included calls for German officers to desert or to disobey Hitler's orders. As a result of these broadcasts Hitler ordered that Paulus' entire family should be imprisoned.

In 1946 Paulus appeared at Nuremberg as a witness for the prosecution. Although he admitted he had been guilty of a criminal attack on the Soviet Union he refused to incriminate Alfred Jodl or Wilhelm Keitel. Paulus remained in a Soviet Union prison until being released in 1953. He settled in Dresden, East Germany, where he worked as an inspector of the People's Police. Friedrich Paulus died of cancer on 1st February, 1957.

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