Disaster at Stalingrad: An Alternate History (31 page)

The catastrophe in the Caucasus actually accelerated the plan that Zhukov and Vasilevsky had presented to Stalin. The news of the fall of the Caucasus and the Transcaucasian republics had shaken Soviet morale to the core. Time was rapidly slipping away, and with each day, the oil reserves drained away as well. Hitler’s famous intuition had once again proven uncannily prescient. But he had not counted on Stalin’s determination to roll the dice one last time. Only Operation Uranus had a chance of reversing the inevitable.

The problem was that Uranus had been planned for the end of November. Now it would have to be executed far sooner. Manstein had been correct. Zhukov and Vasilevsky had read the same map, and their eyes had been drawn to the weakness of the flanks at Stalingrad. From the flanks their eyes had moved east to the Don crossing at Kalach. Six weeks more and the armies they would unleash would have been strong enough, but that would have depended on the flood of supplies and equipment, especially the trucks and other logistical means, especially plentiful oil from the south, they would need for the rapid thrust from the Volga to the Don. Now they must make do with what they already had and with what could be stripped from the other fronts to the north, immobilizing the northern forces to a degree that they could not put pressure on the Germans.

Zhukov was a hard man to beat, but even he knew how their chances of success were dwindling. All the odds seemed to be stacking up in the Germans’ favour. Now even the weather that had so often saved Russia seemed to support the Germans. The torrential rains of the autumn
rasputitsa
would be falling just as their armies needed firmly frozen ground for their success.

Now Stalin was truly afraid. He had more to worry about than the Germans. For the first time even those dogs who had licked his boots had cause to believe they had more to fear with Stalin than without. The loss of the Caucasus had done more than stagger the morale of the country. It had cracked the façade of his leadership as no other defeat had. Whispers compared it to the evaporation of the deep-seated faith in the tsar as benevolent ruler anointed by God after his Cossacks had sabred hundreds of peaceful petitioners in the Bloody Sunday Massacre of 1905.
⁸

There were more than whispers. Abakumov was more than aware of this; he was behind it. In greatest secrecy he was showing Stalin’s Okrana file to members of the Politburo and to senior officers of the Red Army. He had never seen so many shaken men.
⁹

Manstein threw the paper down on the floor. Hitler had gone back on his word to keep 11th Army as a front reserve. The order commanding its commitment to the renewed offensive at Stalingrad now lay at the field marshal’s feet.

Led by four specialized combat engineer battalions especially flown into the city, 90,000 Germans attacked on a 3-mile front to smash their way to the Volga and finally to destroy 62nd Army. Chuikov had thrown a small spanner into the works two days before by launching his own morning counterattack. It had gained 300 yards, but the German counterpunch was near mortal. Everywhere the Germans ground forward, consuming one Soviet division after another. By the end of the day 14th Panzer Division had cut through to the Volga, splitting Chuikov’s army in two.

Despite this success, Manstein’s attention was still drawn to the flanks where Soviet forces continued to build up like black thunderclouds. He obeyed Hitler’s order only so far as slowly redeploying 11th Army as far forward as the rail hub at Zhutovo station, 55 miles north of Kotelnikovo.

Already it was growing cold. The freezing rains had soaked the ruins of the city making life even more miserable for both sides. They continued to fall day after day. The nights now brought frost. Chuikov had more to concern him than a natural phenomenon that apportioned its misery impartially. The huge German guns from Sevastopol had been devastating. They were unlike the German’s aerial bombardment or even their normal artillery fire that simply transformed the urban architecture into a rubble-strewn fortress maze. Seven-ton shells reduced the ruins to mounds of shattered brick and concrete under which only the dead lay.

The Germans kept smashing their way forward, forcing Chuikov to move his headquarters behind the Red October factory. The one division he received as reinforcement was quickly burning out. The northern element of his command had been reduced to a small cut-off pocket. Sixty-Second Army had been pushed so far back that its heels were almost on the Volga’s edge.

And they did. One German regimental commander talking on the field telephone with his forward elements could hear the Russians shouting,
‘Urrah!’
A Soviet regimental commander when his command post was being overrun did not hesitate to call down a Katyusha strike on his own position. The German fighting men gave the Russians the ultimate soldier’s salute when they said, ‘the dogs fight like lions’.
¹¹

If there was a bright spot for Chuikov, it was that Vassily Zaitsev had been knocking off a half dozen fascists a day. The young sniper’s kill score had already reached forty; he had become the darling of the war correspondents and the pride of the 62nd Army. The sniper team he had trained was killing another dozen or so Germans every day. Although the Germans would lose far more men in the course of the
Rattenkrieg,
the nature of sniper kills, coming out of nowhere to strike down men who thought they were safe, was far more unnerving to German morale.

Chuikov would have been immensely relieved to know that the build-up for Operation Uranus was steadily progressing, but even he had not been informed of it for security reasons. The Red Army was making such good use of concealment and deception measures that Gehlen’s Foreign Armies East seriously underestimated its scale. It was paying far more attention to the build-up in front of Army Group Centre. This was Operation Mars, designed to encircle a German army on that front at the same time as Uranus was to encircle 6th Army. Nor did Gehlen detect that the forces assembled for Mars were now being bled away to support Uranus. Stavka had no choice. There were just not enough resources to support two major operations. There was no question as to which was more important - Stalingrad. Operation Mars was cancelled.

Ironically, Hitler had come to the same conclusion three days before when he issued Operations Order No. 1, suspending all offensive action on the Eastern Front outside of the fighting for Stalingrad. All the resources of the front were to be directed to the city on the Volga.
¹²

The lead elements of 1st Panzer Army had already passed this town on the Caspian just north of the Caucasus. The highway and parallel railroad from Baku had been too far inland to see the sea, but they now turned east to Makhachkala and the Caspian. Suddenly the men could see the blue waters disappearing into the horizon. It was a grand sight that few of them would forget, and it lifted their spirits.

Kleist’s objective was Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga 240 miles away. After what they had been through, 240 miles was nothing, especially since many of them rode in the backs of American trucks, ate American canned food, and wore excellent American boots captured in the dumps at Baku. Most remarkable, though, was that Kleist was able to reequip all his panzer shortfalls with American and British tanks from the same depots. The men had even composed a ditty of appreciation for all their comforts, ending with a resounding refrain,
‘Danke sehr, Herr Roosevelt!’
¹³

Stalin raged, banged the table. He had just received the joint cable from Roosevelt and Churchill that the resumption of the Arctic convoys was impossible. The excuse was the collapse of morale among the merchant seamen of both countries. ‘Put a few hundred up against the wall, if you want to improve the morale of the rest!’ he shouted.

Oberjäger Friedrich Pohl was a very calm man as befitted a successful sniper.
¹⁴
His arrival at the airfield southwest of Stalingrad had tested this self-possession as his Ju 52 transport had weaved and dodged repeated attacks by Soviet aircraft from the moment it crossed the lower Don. Had it not been for the daring Me 109 pilots escorting his transport, he would be dead. As deadly a shot as he was, his Kar 98k rifle with a 5x scope remained useless in its leather case.

The talents of this 27-year old Austrian had become in great demand as the Soviet snipers had been exacting a greater and greater toll on German lives and morale in the fighting for the city. Like every other German soldier on the Eastern Front, he had heard of the desperate fighting for the city. It was a sniper’s happy hunting ground. Obviously they had need of his skill. That’s all his company commander could tell him as he departed his Gebirgsjäger regiment. Waiting for him was a young General Staff officer who introduced himself as Captain von Boeselager, aide to 6th Army Chief of Staff Tresckow. German privates were not used to being greeted by officers upon arrival in a new assignment, especially such exalted ones.

He was even more surprised when the captain escorted him into a tent. Pointing to a major’s uniform, he ordered Pohl to put it on. During the ride into the city, smoking and rumbling with the ongoing German assault, they had the most interesting conversation.

‘Pohl, you have been temporarily promoted to major for a special mission. Henceforth, you are Major Werner König.’

‘Who is that,
Herr Hauptmann?’

‘He’s head of the sniper school at Zossen. That will be your cover. You are not to associate closely with anyone not in the line of duty. I will have a sergeant as an escort and spotter for you.’

‘If I may ask, sir, what is the reason for all this acting?’

‘As well you might,
Oberjäger,
or I should say,
“Herr Major!”’

Staying calm while stalking Russians was one thing, but to be addressed as an officer completely flustered Pohl.

Boeselager had personally selected Pohl; it had been a difficult search to find an expert sniper and someone with a burning grievance. In Pohl he had found both. His combat record was clear, but the grievance was buried deep and took some finding: Pohl’s childhood sweetheart had been declared a
Mischling
and disappeared into the hands of the Gestapo.

In response to Pohl’s question, Boeselager explained, ‘We want you to hunt down and kill Vassili Zaitsev. He is the best of the enemy snipers. The Russians have made a great propaganda story about him. We will build a similar story around you as Major König.’ Then he turned an intently focused face on Pohl. ‘You must kill this Russian.’

The captain then thought to himself, ‘And then we will want you do something else for us.’
¹⁵

Here and there the surviving men of artillery and antitank units among others were withdrawn from the death machine of Stalingrad. Taken to the east bank of the Volga, they were fed and deloused, given hot baths and rest. Then their shrunken ranks were filled with replacements. The reconstructed units were sent back across the Volga to the Beketovka Bulge, the remaining Soviet lodgement, 5 miles south of the city, held by 64th Army. Into the bulge were carefully fed the new tank and mechanized corps of the 51st and 57th Armies where they were hidden in villages and gullies with great skill. Although strict operational security ensured that they were told nothing, the smell of an offensive was in the air. The Red Air Force was doing its best to make sure that any German reconnaissance flight over the build-up area was a death sentence.

Nevertheless, the loss of Western aid was having a rippling effect. The number and strength of units being deployed for Uranus was not what had been planned, and now the date of the attack had been advanced by almost three weeks. The cut-off of aluminium from the West reduced tank and aircraft engine production by half. Food was not as plentiful. Lieutenant Hersch Gurewicz was one of those men brought out of Stalingrad to take part in the offensive. Given his first can of spam, he thought that the bloodbath in the city had a reason if the Soviet Union was actually getting help. Then the mess sergeant told him, ‘Enjoy it, lieutenant, that’s the last of it.’

Tresckow realized that he could have talked himself blue in the face and still would not have convinced the commander of Army Group B to commit himself to treason. His visit to army group headquarters had been ostensibly for operational discussions, but the removal of Hitler was uppermost in his mind. Stauffenberg had been pressing him to continue to work for the field marshal’s support. The two young officers had been unexpectedly successful in placing sympathizers in critical positions, but Manstein was the key. Without him, success was problematical.

Tresckow realized that despite Manstein’s continuous expressions of contempt for the
GroFaZ
within his own small circle, he would not lift his hand against the man who was destroying Germany. The field marshal had taught his little dachshund to lift its tiny paw in a mockery of the Hitler salute, but that was about as far as he was willing to go. Tresckow had even recommended his nephew, Lieutenant Alexander von Stahlberg, to replace Manstein’s wounded aide, hoping he might persuade him to come around, but although the two were to develop a mutual respect and devotion, the field marshal remained unconvinced.
¹⁶

Still Tresckow persisted but only succeeded in making the field marshal more obdurate. ‘Listen, Tresckow, Prussian field marshals do not mutiny. And do not bring up Tauroggen. Stauffenberg already tried that.’

‘But,
Herr Feldmarschall
...’

‘No, you listen. I am responsible for an army group in the field, and I do not feel I have the right to contemplate a coup d’état in wartime. It would lead to chaos inside Germany. I must also consider my oath and the admissibility of murder for political objectives.’
¹⁷

Tresckow responded, ‘Do you really think that you are bound by an oath to the anti-Christ? The Evil One is surely enjoying the trick we have played upon ourselves. Once our personal oath was given to the kings of Prussia and the German emperors, men of Christian honour. It has been perverted by Hitler and put at the service of unspeakable crimes.’
¹⁸

Clearly Manstein did not want to hear this. He had his back up now. ‘No senior military commander can for years on end expect his soldiers to lay down their lives for victory and then precipitate defeat by his own hand.’ He looked pointedly at his guest. ‘Besides, I do not think events have reached the stage where such action is necessary.’

He got up and went over to the map. ‘Let’s get to the business at hand.’ He pointed to the 6th Army rear between Stalingrad and Kalach:

The 29th Motorized Division had already been pulled out as an army group reserve, brought up to strength, and readied for an attack on Astrakhan, another one of Hitler’s ideas. This was before Kleist’s 1st Panzer Army began its drive on the city. Manstein smacked the map at a place called Yeriko-Krepinski, the rail station 25 miles southwest of the city. ‘Concentrate them here.’
²⁰

Tresckow was taken aback. ‘Hitler will immediately countermand the order.’

‘Then we won’t tell him - yet.’ The younger man realized with a shock that this was the first time Manstein had actually disobeyed the Führer.

The rains had stopped. Outside it was snowing. The ground was freezing.