An ordinary lieutenant could not accept the capitulation of the German commander and, gradually, representatives of the senior and top-level Red Army command started arriving at the department store. [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. The question cannot be answered in military terms. [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. 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. Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, General Arthur Schmidt and Wilhelm Adam, adjutant to the 6th Army commander. [20]:207208,212215 Beevor comments, "Whether this was a ploy to allow Paulus to distance himself from the surrender, or a further example of Schmidt handling events because Paulus was in state of nervous collapse, is not clear." Arthur Schmidt (general) View source Arthur Schmidt (25 October 1895 - 5 November 1987) was an officer in the German military from 1914 to 1943. [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." Most significantly, he promoted Paulus to field marshal. exact date unknow end Nov. - early December 1942, flew out : in the evening of 22 January 1943 - ordered to. This was a new formation under the direction of Oswald Lutz that directed the training and development of the Panzerwaffe, or tank forces of the German army. Marshal Paulus and his generals after capture at Stalingrad - YouTube Battle of Stalingrad - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Get the week's best stories straight to your inbox. 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. [16] However, on 24 November Sixth Army received a further Fhrer order relayed from Army Group B, ordering them to stand firm. The twin pincers of this counteroffensive struck the flanks of the German salient at points about 50 miles . Soviet and German soldiers, who just a few hours earlier had been shooting at one another, now stood quietly together in the yard. On the night of January 31, 1943, units of the 64th Armys 38th Motorized Rifle Brigade broke through to the department store building in the center of Stalingrad, sealing it off from all sides. STALINGRAD: BREAKOUT AND AIRLIFT OPERATION - Academia.edu Category : German commanders at the Battle of Stalingrad He was considered a promising officer; by the time World War II broke out he had been promoted to major general. General Kurt Zeitzler, chief of the Army General Staff, was in a panic because hundreds of Soviet tanks had just smashed through the Romanian Third Army's lines northeast of Stalingrad, threatening communication and supply lines to the German Sixth Army. [2] On 26 January 1942 he was awarded the German Cross in Gold.[3]. Paulus was asleep. Friedrich Paulus - Wikipedia He [12] All the while, Paulus remained silent; the only time he spoke during the conference "was to agree with his chief of staff".[13]. 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. Rudolf Schmidt (12 May 1886 - 7 April 1957) was a general in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II who commanded the 2nd Panzer Army on the Eastern Front. 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. . Battle of Stalingrad | History, Summary, Location, Deaths, & Facts [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. 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. Manstein, Erich von; Powell, Anthony G. (2004). Stalingrad - An Examination of Hitler's Decision to Airlift German soldiers pushing a Junkers-52 aircraft through snow at the captured Soviet airfield of Pitomnik during the Battle of Stalingrad. fly out of the Stalingrad pocket and he left on And, until now, the 6th Army was regarded as the best field army in the Wehrmacht. 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. Only if that happens is there a chance of the war going well for Germany. [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. [37] He died in Karlsruhe on 5 November 1987. 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. After leaving university without a degree, he joined the 111th Infantry Regiment as an officer cadet in February 1910. 'Meeting The Victors', Sputnik Magazine, 1968, USSR; (English-language article). Januar 1943 gemeinsam mit dem tags zuvor zum Generalfeldmarschall befrderten Paulus in sowjetische Kriegsgefangenschaft, zunchst im Kriegsgefangenenlager 5110/48 Woikowo, dann im Gefngnis Lubjanka. The department store building in Stalingrad. This decision to stand firm in a "hedgehog" defence sealed Sixth Army's fate. Okay, October. Januar wurde er zum Generalleutnant befrdert. 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!. An officer, the head of the guards, allowed me and the driver to go out and get the car ready. [4] He tried, unsuccessfully, to secure a cadetship in the Imperial German Navy and briefly studied law at Marburg University. He was, in any case, a defender of a united and sovereign Germany. 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. German officers who flew out of the Stalingrad pocket and became Career [ edit] Schmidt joined the Prussian Army in 1906 and served during World War I. 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. It now seemed more impossible than ever to act against an order of the High Command or Army Group.[17]. In 1953, Paulus moved to East Germany, where he worked in military history research.
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